The $4 million A-List blockbuster that cinemas are refusing to screen.

Today, Seth Rogen and James Franco were supposed to be attending a premiere in New York City for their new movie The Interview, due out in cinemas on Christmas Day.

But they won’t be attending. And they’ve cancelled all further media appearances.

So why wouldn’t you want to publicise a movie that could potentially earn millions in the box office?

Seth Rogen

Because you’ve been hacked and threatened. That’s why.

Last month, Sony Entertainment experienced a severe and explosive hack from a group that calls themselves #GOP. They hacked into Sony’s databases and leaked an early version f the script for the next James Bond movie, Spectre.

Five of Sony’s films, including the new and unreleased version of Annie, turned up on illegal file-sharing sites and were downloaded up to one million times. Brad Pitt’s Fury, which had already hit cinema screens, was also illegally shared.

And now The Interview has been stolen. And worse.

James Franco

An anonymous email from the hackers, issued Tuesday, appeared to threaten violence against public screenings of the movie. “Remember the 11th of September 2001.

We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time,” the hacker group wrote. “If your house is nearby, you’d better leave. Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.”

The Department of Homeland Security said it is “aware of the threat” but “at this time there is no credible intelligence to indicate an active plot against movie theaters within the United States.”

US Federal investigators have said they are closing in on the source of the cyber attack, including the part of the world where it came from.

Initially, North Korea was blamed because The Interview depicts the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim Jong-un

But North Korean spokespeople have denied the claims.

Sony still plans to release The Interview, though it will support theatres if they choose not to run it. Carmike Cinemas, which has 278 theaters in 41 states, pulled the movie Tuesday.

Another chain distanced itself Wednesday. Bow Tie Cinemas, which owns and operates 55 theaters in Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, York and Virginia, told E! News in a statement that it is “saddened and angered by recent threats of terrorism in connection with the movie, The Interview.”

In what was supposed to be the comedy release of the year, there is nothing funny about this hack.