Sony has released the first The Interview trailer on the heels of the poster release earlier todayJames Franco and Seth Rogen star as a talk show host and his producer, respectively, who travel to North Korea to interview dictator Kim Jong-un and legitimize themselves as real journalists.  Their plans are upended when the CIA recruits them to instead assassinate Kim Jong-un.  The trailer makes it clear directors Rogen and Evan Goldberg are willing to go big and broad to serve the funny premise.  The laughs will come with good execution, and these guys have earned our trust on that front.  Like other Rogen/Goldberg scripts (Superbad, Pineapple Express, This Is the End, and hey, even The Green Hornet), The Interview appears to strive for an emotional reality with a focus the talk show host/producer relationship amid the crazy.

Hit the jump to watch the Interview trailer.  Lizzy Caplan and Randall Park also star in the action comedy.  The Interview opens October 10. [Update: We've added three debut images from the film after the jump as well.]

Official synopsis:

In the action-comedy The Interview, Dave Skylark (James Franco) and his producer Aaron Rapoport (Seth Rogen) run the popular celebrity tabloid TV show “Skylark Tonight.” When they discover that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is a fan of the show, they land an interview with him in an attempt to legitimize themselves as journalists. As Dave and Aaron prepare to travel to Pyongyang, their plans change when the CIA recruits them, perhaps the two least-qualified men imaginable, to assassinate Kim Jong-un.

We recently caught up with Goldberg and producer James Weaver to talk about The Interview.  Here's how Goldberg pitched Franco's crazy character:

"I also think one of the reasons why the movie’s so exciting to the audiences we’ve shown it to is, we’ve done a lot of stuff with Franco, but [for this] we were just like, ‘Go crazy.’  Dan Sterling, who wrote the script, crafted this character that’s like, essentially if he wasn’t a celebrity he’d be in an institution, like he’s so bonkers and insane.  Franco got to do so much crazy stuff and you could tell as an actor he was having the greatest time.  We always find that when people are having fun they give us better comedy, and Franco was having the most fun I’ve ever seen him have, and he delivered the weirdest, craziest performance.  Normally in our movies he plays like a quieter guy and [in The Interview] he’s playing an amped up, super high-energy, ADHD talk show host celebrity who’s really excited and happy.  It’s just kind of different and I think the audience gets caught up in the whirlwind of his enthusiasm."

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