Kim Jong-un absence was marketing for The Interview, jokes Seth Rogen

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/oct/17/kim-jong-un-disappearance-the-interview-seth-rogen

Version 0 of 1.

Seth Rogen has joked that the recent disappearance of North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un was mounted as a marketing ploy for the actor’s new comedy, The Interview.

In comments reported by the Press Association, Rogen said the autocrat’s missing 40 days could not have come at a better time to promote the new film, which riffs on an attempt by a US talk show host and producer to assassinate Kim Jong-un live on TV with help from the CIA.

“It’s all a marketing ploy,” said the actor and film-maker, who stars in the comedy alongside James Franco and Lizzy Caplan. “We’ve hid him somewhere, and he’ll be released one week before the movie.

He continued: “It is amazing. It’s almost as if we gave [Kim] a list of, ‘Here’s what you can do that would help promote our film.’ And he’s doing pretty much all of it.”

Rogen’s comments will presumably not go down well in Pyongyang, which has already threatened a “resolute and merciless” response against the US unless it moves to ban The Interview. Officials warned the US government in June that failure to stop the film being released – it is out next month on both sides of the Atlantic – would be considered an “act of war” and later complained to the United Nations.

North Korean state media reported on Tuesday that Kim Jong-un visited a newly built residential district and the Natural Energy Institute of the State Academy of Sciences, after six weeks of global speculation about his whereabouts.