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And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the world's first - and only - attempt to tie "Borat" and "Steel Magnolias" together!

Did they have to cut a lot of shots in order to make it a R?

Um, "Steel Magnolias" is a bit dated comparison don't you think? The movie marketing business has changed a great deal since then and most of those flicks aren't accurate comparisons. But it would be hard to imagine them having a lower per screen than "Marie Antoinette" did this past weekend in a similar number of theaters. $50 million though? Might be a reach.

It doesn't matter what the opening frame performance for Borat is.

People like you and other "HOLLYWOOD BLOGGERS" have been covering this film obsessively for far too long. If it earns less than whatever you expect, you'll call it a "disappointment" and stomp all over it for a week or two and then bring it up every time something that's marketed in a similar way isn't as popular or profitable as you thought it would be.

And it's annoying and completely cheap and boring, and it's all you seem to be capable of. You're desperate to be part of the system yet you're shunned from it, so you appeal to its baser instincts and act like your proclimations of "failure" or "success" mean anything at all to anyone.

It's frankly disgustingly unhip to sit there and try to act like this film HAD BETTER LIVE UP TO EXPECTATIONS!!. You're talking about a film that is targetted toward people who are familiar with Cohen's routine, college kids, some high schoolers and the occasional boomer who is savvy to Cohen's shtick. That's it.

In short: nobody gives a shit what you think about "Borat" or its box office prospects, David Poland.

Christ.

Watch out for those cheap boring proclimations, KIDZ. What expectations? This thing is darn funny. Let's see how far darn funny takes us next week...

Nice hissy fit, Zac. Sorry you are so very angry.

You're awfully upset about something no one gives a shit about. Might want to check into that.

Awesome... according to the studio, they were shocked when the MPAA asked for no cuts and gave it the R.

hehehe! Borat doesn't come out in the US until the 3rd of Nov? How I love being in a country with new releases on Wednesdays!!! Borat hits Belgium on Nov 1st!!! Hmmm... should be a good watching when recouping from Halloween fiesta hangover!

I hadn't really considered watching this movie... I'm not sure it will translate well (to french), but you all are so passionate about it I might just have to see what all the fuss is about!

And Dave... you still haven't said why you found Perfume entertaining!!! I just don't get it!!! (and I've both read the novel and seen the film)

David, I compared the tracking for Borat to that of Dave Chappelle's Block Party in the same week before period. Average awareness for Borat is HALF that of DCBP... and that's despite all the San Diego, Cannes, Toronto, MySpace screenings...the first choice percentage among guys under 25 is also lower than that of DCBP as are all the other numbers.

Now go see what Dave Chappelle's movie made opening weekend and rethink this unrealistic scenario you've layed out for the movie.

I mean, c'mon... Steel Magnolias?!? And you have the nerve to fling stones at other journalists and call them crazy?

Borat will probably make $7-9 million its opening weekend and blow its load in the cities/college towns to cut off any expansion at the knees.

Maybe you and the frat boys find sexist and racist jokes to be funny, but Borat seems like a one trick pony to me from what I've seen... and it's a trick already done by Andy Kaufman and Bronson Pinchot without being nearly as offensive to women and Jews.

But I guess anti-Semitism is the big thing these days...oh, unless of course you're Mel Gibson. (Wasn't he and Fox partners for a number of years? Very interesting...)

Hated Borat EDouglas? How come I'm not surprised, seeing as how I agree with comingsoon.net's reviews about 1% of the time and trust no one's criticism less.

crazycris, if you think that's exciting, how bout the rest of the world getting Children of Men 2 months before America. I was very in love with that.

Plus, the movie was god damn good, so that helps.

On Borat... hmm. Couldn't this backfire. Majorly.

No, I haven't seen Borat yet. I've only seen trailers, clips and the like. Seeing it tomorrow, I guess. 1% huh? So what's your favorite movie this year, Stella? See No Evil?

KCamel... not just CoM (which along with Prada made a weekend trip to London more than worthwhile for me!) but also Marie Antoinette... I saw that in June!!! :o)

I can understand our getting Volver early since it's a European film, but some of these others... Am enjoying this!!!, since I usually have to wait months for anything other than the big budget or big name films that have (almost) simultaneous international release dates...

It's funny how Europe gets all of the GOOD movies before the U.S. and all the bad movies six to seven months after the U.S. Maybe I need to move there. :)

Is there any chance for a movie like Grudge 2 to do any business in Europe after so much negative buzz from its U.S. opening?

you're right there ED!

if a movie is particularly bad... it usually doesn't even make it across the Atlantic! So we don't have a tidal flood of films among which we have to pic and choose a decent flic! In Belgium (my current example) there are usually no more than 2-3 movies out each week and are often so different one from the other there's no overlap among the public.

I don't think the Grudge2's negative buzz will have much of an impact here... none of the target audience (high-school and college students from what I can tell) will hear about said buzz! And in Belgium it will be out for xmas holidays... so plenty of free time for students to go see it then!

David, I've seen Borat last friday at The Rome Film Festival. Often, it's very funny, but I have the impression that it works better as a 5-minutes tv report (maybe on YouTube), less in a movie. Anyway, if a comedy has to be subversive, sometimes I didn't get the joke. I mean, it's great to have fun of a racist rodeo attendant, but I don't know what's so funny to mock a very kind family at dinner.
As an european, I have the feeling that many american critics (not you, of course) are raving for the movie just to not be considered as stupid as the characters involved in it.
Anyway, even if the major newspapers in Italy have long articles about Borat, I noticed that the stuff published about this movie in my website has very few readers and probably, at least here, it will be a flop...

waterbucket + his friends = college students = wanted to see Borat a long time ago = not that interested anymore = thanking the studio for dragging the release out far too long = using the collective money saved to get beer = good time all around

waterbucket - Borat movie = not seeing the funniest movie of the year = waterbucket's loss.

I can't remember hearing an audience laugh so hard and so loud and that's all I need to know. It can easily make 100 million based on word of mouth alone.

Thanks, ED. For a while there I thought I was the only one thinking that this thing has been hyped all out of proportion to its eventual gross, which I still believe won't be much past 40 mill.

And yes, I'm fully prepared to eat any sort of avian should I be proven wrong. I'm still sweeping up feathers from saying THE PRODUCERS would do 50.

Is this the real Edouglas? He doesn't usually write so...passionately.

Well, this is the first time we're discussing Borat. Oh, wait, I mean the 500th time we're discussing Borat. My bad.

The only film BORAT should be compared to is JACKASS uno.

It's funny tv on the big screen. Its not the second coming. MARY was a better film on every conceivable level. The hype is getting sickening. EW cover was the nail in the coffin. BORAT is funny as hell in parts but the targets are soft and those who found it profound are perhaps a tad desperate. There is nothing original about this schtick. It used to be called Candid Camera.

I was just thinking yesterday that Jackass was the best comparison, and that Borat was likely to gross somewhere around Jackass 2's $70 million.

And so Fox stretches it out even more. The only thing I can think that they're trying to do here is build word-of-mouth with people who don't pay attention to the Internet buzz. However, 800 theaters isn't going to REACH most of those people, such as the people around here who heard NOTHING about Snakes on a Plane from the Internet and thought the movie sounded like the most retarded thing in the world. I literally went to a Saturday night screening of SoaP being one of two people in the theater.

Granted, I don't think they'd much care if they skipped Nebraska entirely, but it's people like these that they need to grab if they want it to be more than just a $35 million total gross blip, which is what it's going to be realistically if they don't start getting traction on more than the "in-the-know" people. It'll play well on DVD if it's as great a movie as most are saying (Haven't seen it. Hell, last weekend, with the Clint Eastwood war movie and the Batman Begins director's next film out, we got fucking FLICKA!), so you'll have a decent endgame there, but no SBC nomination or other such things. Screenings help, but how much I have no idea. The only thing I know about booking is that Mondays are EXCEPTIONALLY stressful for them, so I don't know if they could've closed the cap between Toronto and its release date, but I would've at least put the 800 screens THIS week and then gone a little wider the week after. I mean, is Saw III really going to eat up the audience for Borat?

I'm babbling at this point, but what I'm saying is they didn't strike when the fire was hot, and now they need to hit with something else. Maybe it's the power of the movie, but the only movie I've seen lately do that is The Deaprted and that's because it's a MOTHA'FUCKIN' MOVIE amongst a gaggle of puny genre crapfests.

You can take this for whatever it's worth, but on The Hollywood Stock Exchange, which is a disturbingly accurate predictor of grosses, BORAT has fallen almost in half in the past month, from a high of $71 a share to its current level of about $39; in other words, it's only expected to make 39 mill through its fourth weekend. Granted, some of that has to be a by-product of the cut in screen count, but still, it seems to reinforce those of us who believe it'll wind up closer to SNAKES than 4YOV.

Cadavra, as a former HSX player (and a pretty good one at that), the $39 million four week thing is a bit deceptive. That's based on an opening weekend of 800 theatres, which is then multiplied by a set multiplier. Since the movie is reportedly expanding into more than twice as many theatres in Week 2, it's likely to make more than that amount by the end of Week 4. I expect this to behave like Bridget Jones' Diary.... which is a much better comparison than Steel Magnolias :)

Well, I assume they're taking that expansion into consideration. But even if they don't, let's go whole hog and stipulate that twice 39 is $78 million--a very solid number, but still well short of the $100 million-plus so many are predicting...

Everyone's favorite ranting contrarian is at it again. Armond hates Borat:

http://www.nypress.com/19/44/film/ArmondWhite.cfm

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