Seth Rogen, James Franco and Co. got one heck of a New Years gift this week, with the expansion of its theatrical release and a new deal with dish for on-demand broadcasting. Besides some really clever business decisions on the part of Sony, it appears that the controversy around the hack from December has worked in the film’s favour. In case you’ve been hibernating/away from the internet throughout December, you can read more about said hack here.

Seth Rogen, James Franco
Despite the hack, Sony has managed to salvage The Interview's release.

For the low, low price of $5.99, Dish subscribers will be able to rent the film, the network announced on Thursday. On Wednesday, Sony Pictures announced the film would be available on outlets such as Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable. It also became available on VOD and pay-per-view services of Charter Communications, Cablevision, AT&T U-verse TV, Verizon's FiOS and DirecTV, according to the LA Times. This means that The Interview will now be available in roughly 80 million homes across the US

Watch the trailer below.

In addition, as of today, the film is playing in 200 more theatres, with its latest theatrical expansion. It’s just another part of a modest turnaround by Sony, after the studio scrapped its original plans to release the movie on Christmas Day. On December 17, a cyber attack and threats by a group called the Guardians of Peace (not a team of likeable superpowered misfits, unfortunately), led a number of theatres to refuse to show the flick, depicting the fictional assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Subsequent criticism, most notably by president Obama, led the studio to quietly release the film in a few theaters and on some streaming platforms, including XBox Live, PlayStation Network and YouTube.

More: The Interview Poster Is A Thing Of Beauty

As of Thursday, the film, which cost $44 million to make, had grossed $3.5 million in theaters and more than $15 million in online rentals.