Start Spreading The News: What You Should Read Today [12/19/14]

At the movies, "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" (released Dec. 17) marks the end of Peter Jackson's trilogy, and next week's Christmas releases include "Into the Woods" and "American Sniper." But all anyone can talk about is "The Interview." Here's what you should be reading today.

Popular Authors Offer To Screen "The Interview"

Sony has canceled the release of "The Interview" after hackers made terrorist threats toward moviegoers. Since then, many people have stepped up and offered to screen the movie, with the most recent offer coming from "The Alchemist" author Paulo Coelho. On Twitter:

Coelho is not the only author who has stepped up to screen "The Interview." George R. R. Martin, author of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" fantasy book series on which HBO's popular "Game of Thrones" is based, said he wants to screen the film in his theater, the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico. "In a stunning display of corporate cowardice, Regal, AMC, and every other major theater chain in the United States have canceled their plans to show the new Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy 'The Interview,' because of -- yes, seriously, this is not a 'South Park' sketch (though I expect it soon will be) -- threats from North Korea," Martin said in a blog post.

Beyoncé Loses To "Minecraft" Creator

It's rare that Beyoncé would lose to anyone in anything, but that's just the case when it comes to a $70 million Beverly Hills mansion. The superstar was outbid by Markus Persson, better known as Notch, Mashable reported. Persson is the creator of "Minecraft" and sold Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion.

That's One 'Super-Earth'

Don't call it a comeback, but NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered its first exoplanet as part of its new mission. NASA was worried that the planet-hunting spacecraft would have to be retired due to a reaction wheel failure. After some crafty engineering, Kepler was rebooted and detected HIP 116454b, an exoplanet that's 2.5 times the diameter of Earth and orbits its host star in nine days.

The End

Thursday saw the season finale of "Serial" and the series finale of "The Colbert Report." The "This American Life" spinoff will begin a new investigation as part of a second season, while Stephen Colbert will take over for David Letterman on the "Late Show."

The end of "Serial" has led many to question the show's ultimate endgame and what purpose it served. "Let’s start by just coming out with it. The series was badly written," Jake Wallis Simons, writing for the Telegraph, said in piece looking at the show's success and first season.

As for Colbert, he became immortal.