LOS ANGELES ¨C Sony Pictures¡¯ ¡°The Interview¡± is the top-grossing movie of the year for Google Inc., after earning $15 million in online sales and rentals from all sources through Saturday.
The tally on Google¡¯s Play and YouTube outlets, Xbox and other Web sources, dwarfs the $2.84 million the Seth Rogen comedy took in this past weekend from movie theaters. ¡°This Is the End,¡± Rogen¡¯s directorial debut, generated $20.7 million in its opening weekend in 2013. Google spokeswoman Michelle Slavich declined to provide a figure for how much the movie generated on the company¡¯s sites.
The sales, an online record for Sony Pictures, will partly mitigate financial damage caused by the so-called Guardians of Peace, the hacking group that broke into the company¡¯s computers and released confidential corporate and personnel information. The studio, which is based in Culver City, California, spent an estimated $80 million making and marketing the film.
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