LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Sony Pictures comedy The Interview will play in more than 200 theaters, a spokesman said on Tuesday, after the studio decided to do a limited release with independent exhibitors on Christmas Day.

Sony Pictures scrapped a wide release last week after the biggest movie theatre chains said they would not screen the film over security concerns made by hackers incensed by the story line of the film. which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco and is about a fictional plot to assassinate North Korea leader Kim Jong Un.

But in a surprising reversal of that decision, Sony will allow The Interview to play in US theatres on Christmas Day after coming under criticism from President Barack Obama and others for caving into pressure from North Korea.

The White House praised Sony's about-face, which the studio said would result in "a limited theatrical release" of the film, "The decision made by Sony and participating theaters allows people to make their own choices about the film, and we welcome that outcome," presidential spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement.

Mr Obama on Friday had called Sony's decision to pull the US$44 million (S$58.2 million) movie a mistake, suggesting it could set a precedent in which "some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States".

Congressional Republicans and Democrats, as well as Hollywood luminaries such as George Clooney, had also assailed the cancelled release, with some accusing the studio of self-censorship. Some in Congress called for screenings on Capitol Hill or at the White House.

Franco and Rogen, who also co-directed the film, broke their silence after Sony made the announcement.

"The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed!" Rogen said, while Franco added, "VICTORY!!!!!!! The PEOPLE and THE PRESIDENT have spoken!!!"

Sony Pictures Entertainment chief executive Michael Lynton said the studio was looking for more options to screen the film, which major US theatre chains pulled because of threats from hackers who warned of a Sept 11, 2001 style of attack.

Mr Lynton said in Tuesday's statement: "We have never given up on releasing The Interview and we're excited our movie will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day."

He said Sony was trying to secure other platforms and more theatres "so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience".

The first sign Sony was having second thoughts about pulling the film came in a tweet from Mr Tim League, founder of the Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain, saying it planned to show the movie. Tickets sold out for many of the screenings within minutes of their being offered online.

A theatre in Atlanta, the Plaza Atlanta, also said on social media that it will also show the movie.

It remained unclear how many theaters would be allowed to screen the film and if major movie chains would reverse course and join the group of authorised exhibitors.

Legal experts said theatre owners, not Sony, would bear the brunt of legal liability in the event of violence at the shows.

In one case that has similar themes, victims of the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado brought a case against the theater owner, Cinemark USA. In August, the judge overseeing the case refused to dismiss the lawsuit and allowed it to move forward.

Even so, Mr Eugene Volokh, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, said movie theaters would have "a pretty strong defense" in such a case because, although there is a general threat concerning The Interview, it is not specific or foreseeable.

Mr Greg Laemmle, the president of Los Angeles cinema chain Laemmle Theatres, said it would screen 'The Interview' at one venue on Dec. 31 - albeit with extra security precautions - and that Sony told the chain of a plan to have the movie play on video-on-demand (VOD) beginning on Dec. 25. Sony has not confirmed the VOD plan, which has also been reported elsewhere.

As of yet, however, no major US cable or satellite operator has plans to offer the film to their subscribers even though legal experts said they would be unlikely to face liability in the case that a VOD showing led to some new hacking incident.

A national security official said the US authorities did not rate the threats by hackers against theatergoers as credible and that he was unaware of any plans by US agencies to issue warnings of possible attacks on exhibitors screening the film.

North Korea experienced Internet problems at the weekend and a complete outage of nearly nine hours before links were largely restored on Tuesday; US officials said Washington was not involved.

Links were restored at 1.46am GMT on Tuesday, but two brief outages occurred later in the day, said US-based Dyn Research, a company that monitors Internet infrastructure.

Mr Matthew Prince, CEO of US-based CloudFlare, which protects websites from web-based attacks, said the fact that North Korea's Internet was back up "is pretty good evidence that the outage wasn't caused by a state-sponsored attack; otherwise it'd likely still be down for the count".

South Korea, which remains technically at war with North Korea, said meanwhile it could not rule out involvement by its neighbor in a cyberattack on its nuclear power plant operator involving non-critical data.

North Korea has denied it was behind the cyberattack on Sony and has vowed to hit back against any US retaliation, threatening the White House and the Pentagon.

Some of the internal emails leaked by the hackers who attacked Sony suggest it is considering a sale of its Sony/ATV Music Publishing unit, the Wall Street Journal reported.