This comes as a total shock. Not.

The upcoming comedy The Interview - which sees Seth Rogen and James Franco as TV newspeople who are forced by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong-Un - has been in the middle of a ton of controversy.

North Korea's publicly denounced the film, promised retaliation - and then the Sony Hack happened. Which North Korea say they had no involvement in.

Whoever pulled it off, it's had a huge affect on the troubled studio.

Between the trouble with North Koreans and now this, Sony have decided to pull The Interview from most of the Asian market. The film will instead only be released in Australia and New Zealand.

That's a huge blow to the film's potential earnings. Japan and China have huge audience numbers - and by cutting the film off from that market means they're going to lose out on potential revenue.

China was a long-shot in terms of a release as the country has close ties with the Hermit Kingdom, however pulling The Interview from Japanese cinemas says one thing - Sony are spooked.

Not only that, all red carpet interviews have been pulled from the US premiere of the film - although that might have something to do with half of Sony's execs being nasty as shit to people on e-mails.

The Interview will see an Irish release some time in 2015.

 

via Variety.com