Defamer
A giant horsefly has landed in the ointment Borat has been enthusiastically slathering upon his neon-benutslinged body in anticipation of his movie's imminent release: The LAT is reporting that the initial plan of a 2000-screen opening is being scaled back drastically to a not-so-is-nice 800 screens, a tactical move Fox explains away using the kind of creative, textural jargon that trips effortlessly off the tongues of studio suits forced to save face whilst simultaneously massaging the outsized egos of their Kazakh superstars:
"Our research showed it was soft in awareness," said Bruce Snyder, Fox's distribution chief.Industry analysts could not recall a studio trimming the number of locations so sharply less than two weeks before a film's debut. [...]
The movie also could be suffering from what one executive called "Snakes on a Plane" syndrome — buzz that peaks too early. After a year of Internet hype, "Snakes" had a disappointing opening this summer for New Line Cinema. Still, that movie was being hyped sight unseen, whereas critics have raved about "Borat."
With the movie's months of online hyping and series of MySpace screenings, it's not surprising that the words Snakes on a Plane would eventually rear their flanked, hissing head, and possibly sink their fangs into Borat's Pringle-tube-thick chram as they pump him with deadly box office poison. Still, it's premature to assume the movie will tank, especially one with advance buzz as positive as this one. At the very least, the filmmaker can proudly say that he never caved in to the overwhelming audience demand for their hero to just once utter the line, "Attention she-serpents!!! You make shit outside. Or else I now make sexy time explosion in your mother. Yes?"
Comments
Damn! I was going to mention the Snakes Factor yesterday -- and thus earn myself a slightly used Emmy -- but I thought, no, people seem to like the movie itself, as opposed to the idea of the movie.
That's what I get for thinking. Stupid philosophy degree.
Sooner or later, Fox had to acknowledge that looming juggernaut that is THE ESCAPE CLAUSE.
Ahh, laughing at people is the best medicine in the world.
Can someone please help me care about this movie? I keep trying and....nothing.
No one digs Borat/Ali G. because he's a comedy bully. Unlike his countrymen Monty Python, who teased rather more gently. I always thought he was wack.
I think they're onto something, though. I remember seeing Borat bus posters in August, then learning it didn't come out until November and thinking, "What the f***?" Borat ain't Batman, folks. Save it up.
They had free screenings? For Borat's MySpace fans? I've never understood the whole "let's have a free screening for the few people who would have paid to see this anyway" thing...
I predict that this movie will do marginally well at the box office; and everyone will call it a flop.
However, it will be quoted throughout dorm hallways ad infinitum - and the DVD sales/HBO showings will be brisk.
I also predict that Jegshemesh will be the new cool thing to write on the wall in urinal stalls.
"Our research showed it was soft in awareness"?!
They have done so much publicity, even the ass-backward, barbarian, mental defective rubes in that one country know about the Borat movie.
The studio premiered it at their film festival in Toronto, they couldn't miss it.
He's from England; if he makes twenty bucks from this he'll go home and everyone at the pub will buy him drinks, laughing about how he took those Colonials to the cleaners.
Not that I actually know these things, but wouldn't that be "benutslung?"
Isn't 800 screens kind of subverting the chances of success to begin with?
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