Does success of "The Interview" pave way for digital distribution?

NEW YORK -- Moviegoers came to theaters showing "The Interview" this weekend with a patriotic defiance not often seen in a sophomoric comedy.

"I wasn't planning to see it but no tin-horn dictator is going to tell me what second-rate comedy I'm allowed to see," said one moviegoer.

The box office bravado was more than matched online. The film has brought in more than $15 million in digital downloads and nearly $3 million from just 300 theaters.

Box-office analyst Paul Dergarabedian of the market-research firm Rentrack, says the online numbers came as a surprise.

I asked Dergarabedian if we're looking at a new business model when it comes to movie releases.

"You're not going to see major mainstream big budget movies released in this way - if you look at "The Interview" and the circumstances surrounding its release, it's the very definition of an anomaly," answered Dergarabedian.

Despite the film's online performance, Dergarabedian believes studios are loathed to go to digital distribution. While "The Interview" performed well online, it had 1.5 to 2.5 million illegal downloads.

Although the film's $18 million take was seen as a success, it paled in comparison to this week's box office winner: "The Hobbit," which grossed $41 million. It's a lesson not lost on studios.

"If you're going to spend a couple hundred million dollars on a movie and its marketing, you have to have that theatrical experience," said Dergarabedian. "You have to have those revenues coming in from the theater and then down the line, at the appropriate time, having that online revenue coming to play."

As for "The Interview," Sony Pictures says in the first four days of the digital release, the film was rented or bought more than two million times. Sony says that makes it the studio's number one online movie of all time.