Streaming service Netflix is to add the controversial comedy The Interview to its U.S. and Canadian catalogue beginning Saturday January 24, the company announced on Tuesday (January 18, 2014). 

The InterviewSeth Rogen [L] and James Franco [R] star in The Interview

As previously reported, Netflix had begun talks with Sony about licensing The Interview to streaming subscribers after Starz released the pay-TV window rights. However, Sony wanted to maximise digital and VOD sales and, as of Sunday, The Interview had generated more than $40 million in revenue through 5.8 million rentals. 

More: Theaters to screen The Interview as Sony insists, "We did not cave"

The Interview stars James Franco and Seth Rogen as two American TV journalists hired by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. The real-life communist regime seemingly retaliated against Sony in one of the biggest cyber-attacks on a private company in history. Thousands of emails, documents and unreleased movies were circulated online and world leaders including President Barack Obama condemning the attacks.

More: So, you can now watch The Interview online

So, Netflix now has exclusive SVOD rights to The Interview in the U.S. and Canada. 

Perhaps fortunately for Sony, the controversy surrounding The Interview overshadowed the film's critical mauling. However, some reviewers thought they found something in the comedy that others didn't.

"If you can make it through the first fifteen minutes you'll be rewarded with a movie that's very funny, emotionally deep and has more, perhaps, to say about American interventionism than it does about the real Kim Jong Un," said Devin Faraci of Badass Digest.

"The Interview, the gross-out satire that has united Americans in support of free speech and against North Korea, is broad, bawdy and bad -- but also consistently, undeniably entertaining," wrote Tim Walker of the Independent. 

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