North Korea is not pleased: The bizarre story around the American film "The Interview" propelled that article to the top spot this week, not that anyone can quite figure out what has happened.
The bizarre story around the American film The Interview propelled that article to the top spot this week, not that anyone can quite figure out what has happened. Aside from that, we have the normal fare of films like The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (#5) and the Indian PK (#6), a Google doodle (Wassily Kandinsky at #2), television series like the new Marco Polo which hit #15 in the greater Top 25 but also got Marco Polo to #3 and Kublai Khan to #12, and two Reddit-fueled entries in the Top 25.
For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.
For the week of December 14 to 20, 2014, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Interview (2014 film) | 
|
1,274,526 |  |
So, the story goes that this typically absurd American male comedy film starring Seth Rogen (pictured) and James Franco, which lampoons a fictional plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, led to the November 2014 Sony Pictures Entertainment hack, and then subsequent internet threats to unleash "September the eleventh" levels of violence if the movie was released, which led movie theater chains to refuse to screen the film, which led Sony to pull the movie's release altogether, a reaction which a cybersecurity expert called "beyond the realm of stupid." North Korea denied the hack, and saw its own flimsy internet connections flame out on 22 December. On 23 December, Sony announced the movie would now get a "limited release" on December 25. The Traffic Report really has no idea what to make of this bizarre chain of events, except that it is nice that no one has been killed by wars of internet trolls. More people are probably going to watch clips of the film's brutal imagined death of Kim Jong-un than ever would have without the controversy. Imagine if a One Direction song raised more social awareness than the entire catalog of Bob Dylan, and that's the basic situation we seem to have here. |
| 2 | Wassily Kandinsky | 
|
713,349 |  |
This influential Russian painter and art theorist is credited with painting one of the first purely abstract works. Google commemorated Kandinsky's 148th birthday by featuring a Google Doodle based on his work. |
| 3 | Marco Polo | 
|
695,433 |  |
The release of the series Marco Polo (#15) on Netflix this week brought new attention to the 13th century Venetian explorer, as well as his Asian host Kublai Khan (#12). |
| 4 | Hanukkah |
|
683,140 |  |
The 8-day Hebrew Festival of Lights, commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem during the Maccabean Revolt against the Persian Seleucid Empire in 200 BC, began on December 16 this year. |
| 5 | The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies |
|
663,792 |  |
The final installment of The Hobbit film series directed by Peter Jackson (pictured) debuted in New Zealand on December 11, and the United States on December 17. As of December 21, the film has already earned over $355 million in worldwide revenue. Up from #18 last week. |
| 6 | PK (film) |
|
638,357 |  |
This Hindi film starring Aamir Khan debuted on December 19. The Bollywood press seems to have liked it, with Bollywood Hungama calling it "a solid entertainer that will surely entertain the masses and classes alike", and reviewer Subhash K. Jha giving it 4 out of 5 stars, saying "'PK' is a film designed to warm the cockles of the heart." The phrase "warm the cockles of the heart" really is underused these days, isn't it? The plot revolves around the arrival a human-looking alien on earth who needs to recover a stolen piece of his equipment, and includes satire regarding the phenomenon of Indian "godmen". The film grossed about US $25 million in its opening weekend. |
| 7 | Guardians of the Galaxy (film) | 
|
583,334 |  |
This critically and popularly adored movie proved its staying power when its arrival on Blu-ray was greeted with a shot to the top of this list. Up a bit from 555,000 views last week, its popularity continues. |
| 8 |
|
577,740 | .JPG) |
The perennially popular article arrives at #8 this week. | |
| 9 | Deaths in 2014 | 
|
508,396 |  |
The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550,000, apparently heedless of who actually died. Deaths this week included American singer Millie Kirkham (age 91), who used to sing with Elvis Presley (December 14); Scottish Anglican bishop Michael Hare-Duke (age 89) (December 15); Man Haron Monis (age 50), perpetrator of the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis (December 16); Ukrainian poet Oleh Lysheha (age 65, December 17, pictured); Italian actress Virna Lisi who starred in films including 1965's How to Murder Your Wife (age 78, December 18); American actor Arthur Garder, who at age 104 was the last surviving cast member of the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front (December 19); and Nigerian footballer Seriki Audu (age 23), who died in a car crash on December 20. |
| 10 | Jordan Belfort |
|
490,256 |  |
You may not remember it, or believe it, but this author of The Wolf of Wall Street topped our list for three weeks in January 2014. The article has experienced a new jump in popularity since December 12. |
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