Movie Theaters Forced to Cancel Showings of Team America: World Police

Movie Theaters Forced to Cancel Showings of Team America: World Police

Peter Suderman|Dec. 18, 2014 3:08 pm

After Sony Pictures announced yesterday that it was pulling the release of The Interview, a film about two American journalists sent to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, from its scheduled Christmas Day release after threats of movie theater terrorism, several theaters across the U.S. said that they would show Team America: World Police instead.

The basic idea was to replace one movie mocking the North Korean regime with another. Team America, an all-puppet comedy from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, pits its heroes against a sad-sack version of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. At the end of the movie, he’s impaled on a giant spike, and it’s revealed that he’s actually an alien cockroach. Fitting!

Now, however, it looks like moviegoers may not get to see either film on the big screen any time soon. The Daily Beast reports that theaters in Cleveland and Atlanta that had planned to make the switch say that Paramount, the studio behind Team America, has ordered them to stop. The Alamo Drafthouse in Texas, which also planned to show the puppet comedy, announced on Twitter this afternoon that due to “circumstances beyond our control” its Team America screening has ben cancelled.

Paramount apparently hasn’t provided any reason why it’s ordering the shows to be stopped.

https://reason.com/blog/2014/12/18/movie-theaters-forced-to-cancel-showings