Sony Pictures has announced it has arranged for “The Interview” to be shown at a few hundred theaters nationwide in an unusual limited release. The New York Times says that it’s unlikely the big national theater chains — Regal, Cinemark, AMC, etc — will reverse course on their previous decision not to show the comedy.

Many smaller theaters are more amenable, however.

Matt Smith, owner of Riverdale 10 in Little Rock and theaters in Searcy and Cabot, says that he’ll show the film for several weeks, beginning on Christmas Day. Smith told the Arkansas Times that to his knowledge, his theaters are the only ones in Arkansas that will be showing “The Interview.”

Smith had planned to show the movie from the beginning but he’d been forced to scrap those plans along with everyone else when Sony announced last week that distribution of the film would be delayed indefinitely.


Sony’s decision to delay distribution of “The Interview” was driven both by the reluctance of the big national chains and cyberattacks from North Korean hackers, who took issue with the movie’s central theme: an assassination attempt on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The delay of distribution was criticized by President Obama as “a mistake.”