Seth Rogen’s upcoming comedy The Interview may have provoked a very serious reaction from its subject, a reaction that in a worst case scenario could lead to World War III.

From a comedic perspective, the new comedy from Seth Rogen and James Franco written and directed by Rogen and his partner Evan Goldberg sounds like a hilarious idea. In The Interview Franco will star as a reporter who lands an interview with Kim Jong-Un (Randall Park). When the U.S. government finds this out, Franco’s reporter character and his producer played by Rogen are tasked with assassinating Jong-Un, something that, obviously, won’t go smoothly. This sounds like a hilarious premise, but it could have real world implications.

After the trailer debuted to a wide audience earlier this month (it has been viewed nearly 5 million times on YouTube alone), the film’s subject Kim Jong-Un didn’t react well. Over the weekend in an interview with The Telegraph, Kim Myong-chol, an “unofficial spokesman” for the North Korean regime said Kim Jong-un would “probably” watch the film and had this to say:

There is a special irony in this storyline as it shows the desperation of the US government and American society. A film about the assassination of a foreign leader mirrors what the US has done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. And let us not forget who killed [President John F.] Kennedy – Americans. In fact, President [Barack] Obama should be careful in case the US military wants to kill him as well.

The response definitely sounds a little off the deepend, especially near the end. We expected that this would be the end of the story, but things took an even more dramatic turn yesterday. A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman made a statement that said “The act of making and screening such a movie that portrays an attack on our top leadership… is a most wanton act of terror and act of war, and is absolutely intolerable,” as well as adding that if the US did not ban the screening of The Interview it would force a “resolute and merciless response” from North Korea.

Today, The New York Times filed a related report:

North Korea fired three short-range projectiles off its east coast on Thursday, a day after it warned of retaliation against the release of an American comedy film involving a plot to kill its leader, Kim Jong-un.

The Times also added that it is not known if the projectiles were at all related to the continuing The Interview escalation, but the timing would make it appear likely. The South Korean government is running analysis to try to figure out what kind of projectiles they were and why they were shot.

This is a situation that would be very easy to joke about, much like how The Interview looks to be joking about a similar scenario. But this is the real world, and it’s possible that this North Korea retaliating could become a very real situation. There’s no way the U.S. government or the United Nations is going to allow World War III to start over a comedy movie, but it’s hard to see the movie being banned either. It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out, and we hope that it reaches a peaceful conclusion as it’s possible that real lives could be put in serious danger.