The studios were predicting a $50 million opening weekend for Bruno last week… and they missed by quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong, if any movie I ever did in my life got a $30 million dollar opening weekend I’d be dancing in the streets naked humping fire hydrants… but that’s just me.
It’s considered normal for a movie to take between a 45%-50% drop off in ticket sales between their first and second weekend out. If it only drops by like 30% you’re doing REALLY well. Borat was one of the VERY few films that actually took a jump UP on its second weekend in release.
Bruno however took a massive dive and dropped over 73% only managing to make about $8 million on it’s second weekend. I’m not surprised. I have not seen the movie myself, but even thout the film holds a very respectable 69% on Rotten Tomatoes, most of my friends who have seen the movie haven’t been impressed and usually say it’s “ok”.
Do you think this will mean the end of Sacha Baron Cohen’s old character movies?
i think the reason why it dropped so much is that the people who saw it didn’t realize the inherent values it offers our society and those who haven’t seen it are simply too insecure to challenge themselves. the movie is meant to create references from which to build from. the messages are clear:
1)gay people aren’t sexual deviants
2)gay people aren’t pedophiles
3)we are conditioned to see the human body in an unhealthy way
4)the real sick people are sick because of their irrational, misguided superstitions
5)the heterosexual mindset can be to corrupt and abuse our future (our children)
6)celebrity and fame worship can be analogous to a disease
there are many more of course. Cohen is a genius and this movie moves our society forward unlike most can. the real tragedy and shock is that most people have missed this opportunity to expand upon their consciousness and thus help to create a more equitable and balanced world.
Its a shame that such a brilliant comedian does not get, that his clean jokes are the funniest.
Bruno pushed the envelope so much it became the comedians worst nightmare..um..unfunny.
Some of the stuff was hilarious, some was outrageiously embarrassing, but that does not mean its clever or funny, just means your going for the cheap jokes.
We expect more from a comedian thats been campared to Andy Kaufman.
He excluded teens and kids and basically any families from seeing the movie which alienates 40% of his audience since he is a silly silly guy.
He can have a super loyal teen and family audience that enjoys edgy comedy besides the adults that love him. There was no reedeming message of any value whatsoever in the movie, where he had ample opporuntity.
Its hard when you set the bar so high with Borat.
30 million dollar opening weekend still is fantastic considering he is entertaining us all by himself and its nearly rated X material.
He is an amazing talent that I hoped learned from this, he is funniest when he is just a goof ball, not vulgar, but edgy, not outrageous, but unique.
there is a difference.
Perhaps I am approaching this simplistically, but my only reason for not seeing Bruno was that after all the publicity stunts all over the world and somewhat funny interview spots on various talk shows I felt like there was every chance I had already seen what Bruno had to offer.
Obvious humour like this can be oversold, and it looks like others felt the same way?
I think it dropped because most people are still uncomfortable with outright homosexuality. The film is shocking, moreso than Borat and I think that ultimately alienated it’s audience.
However, I agree with a comment above. Bruno will most likely become a cult film.
I think you could probably just put it down to bad word of mouth because it’s just not a very good movie. I loved Borat. This seemed like it was a cheap rip-off of Borat made by someone who missed the entire point of Borat.
It wasn’t funny. Unless you find dicks or the mention of dicks, utterly hilarious; in which case I guess it was.
I didn’t find myself outraged by how homophobic people are like some people claim the film shows. Would that TV pilot test audience have liked the pilot if that was a heterosexual dick spinning at them? Would those beer drinking red necks expecting a cage fight have cheered with approval if a woman ran out instead, like a scene from a chick flick? Would a woman pantomiming graphic sex acts have left that guy sitting there feeling really comfortable? Would people be okay with a straight person endangering a child? The homosexual element was not what upset the people involved. It was all just crude behaviour with no purpose, intended to shock the audience because it was crude.
I wasn’t offended in the slightest, neither was anyone I know who saw it. Maybe the target audience isn’t as homophobic or prudish as some people like to think, which makes Bruno a pretty boring film. I know what a dick looks like, and I know gay people exist… So it doesn’t work as “shock” humor to simply show a dick and draw my attention to the fact gay people exist. Sadly that was about all the substance there was to Bruno.
Wasn’t that shocking to me. I mean some parts were but overall nah. I think I said this beofre, but I really thought the film would suck when it started with “Vassup, I’m Bruno, hehehehe” I mean come on Cohen! Again, I actually liked it but keep in min,d I only thought it was a little better than ok….
(Btw, Borat was far Superior)
I laughed alot watching this film. so i was very entertained. but i have no interest watching it again. might be a reason it didnt do too well its second weekend…
I think the stuff that was funny only works for the first time. If I were to watch again, I guarantee I’d laugh 50% less.
Brüno will definitely be a cult movie in the future. Sasha Baron Cohen is a great actor but I’m not sure he will venture into these “character”-based films because everyone recognises him now. I liked his performance in Sweeney Todd and Tim Burton will probably cast him in upcoming projects.
Please correct me if I am wrong….
Borat came out in the fall of 2006 (september/october) without a blockbuster opening at the same time.
Bruno was released only a week before Harry Potter!
I think Sacha should try a character movie in Australia. Because he was already huge in Britan so he made Borat in America. Now everyone knows him in America, why not try in Australia. By watching The Chaser’s War on Everything I know that you can get away with alot more in Australia than in the US, so I think that would definetly help with Sacha’s brand of comedy.
I hope it is the end of his career, I want our money back! I would watch mall cop 10 times if it would erase the memory of seeing Bruno.
I saw it last night. It wasn’t as much humor as i had hoped, but i still laughed a lot. The scenes were shocking but not offensive, to me at least. I thought it held up just as well as Borat. My only complaint was that bruno didnt seem to flow as well as borat did. Bruno felt like fragments as opposed to borat which seemed to flow and feel like a movie. Overall i’d give it an 8/10.
SPOILER:
The scene with the mouth of the dick yelling “bruno!!!!” Made me almost piss myself.
The commercials and trailers did not even begin to let on just how this film was going to go. People went in expecting fun and were left uncomfortable with a flopping, talking penis in their face.
From the huge drop on last Saturday and Sunday’s numbers and the mixed word of mouth, i expected a huge drop this weekend. I don’t think it’s possible for him to do another one of his old characters on film. He is too well known now.
The Borat fans are teenagers and young adults. Now you cut that audience in half because most teenagers are homophobes that refuse to see a movie about a gay guy with their other macho friends and you get Bruno Box office results.
why is it too much?
Surely that’s the point of the film, to test people’s boundaries and shock. Why is Bruno pretending to give someone a blowjob too much, but meg ryan faking a huge orgasm in When Harry Met Sally one of the greatest scenes in history? I found the most shocking scene to be when he walks past a sign saying “god hates fags”. You need to take a look at yourself if you find this offensive.
I will never see bruno. Not even for free.
I expected this. I figured that the regular american wouldn’t be interested in a movie about a gay austrian
It’s not that. It’s the fact that we are getting tired of these character movies
He’s made two.
How does Will Ferrel and Seth Rogen get away with making a million movies, but people are sick of Cohen after two.
Because cohen made the EXACT SAME MOVIE twice
I expected at least 14 M. It was a little better than just “ok”. To me it was mildly good. Here’s how it was:
Hilarious moment…..small laugh here and there, hilarious moment…small laughs here and there. I don’t wanna see another Cohen character film, I’m sick of them
I HOPE this means the end.
I don’t think so. I read somewhere that the budget for Bruno was about $40-45M and so far it has made $74M worldwide. This means it will probably go on to do at least $100M plus whatever it makes on dvd. I would not be surprised if they did another movie with a different character in a few years.
A huge reason Borat took a big jump was because it opened in 837 theatres and went up to 2,566 theatres in its second weekend. The average per thretre in the first weekend was $31,607 and in its second weekend it fell to $11,017.
Hey Devon,
That stat is actually irrelevant. with 837 theaters, that mean every single city in North America had Borat playing in multiple theaters, which means anyone who wanted to see it opening weekend could see it. The jump from week one to week two has more to do with word of mouth.
I wouldn’t be so quick to assume that 823 has every potential audience covered. There were plenty of small towns that had no access to the movie during its first week. I was living in one such town when the movie came out, and when it expanded the next week it was clear that the theater was packed with people excited to finally get a chance to see it. Combine the populations from various towns together and you get a vast untapped market.
I don’t think Cohen has anything to be disapointed by, this is a really low budget movie by Hollywood standards and its already made $50 million domesticly, $75 million worldwide. If Borat had made that much he would have been ecctatic.
I thought the movie was hilarious (although I wish this trend of showing dicks in all shock comedy movies would slow down a little – not saying this one wasn’t hilarious – I’m just kinda tired of seeing them in EVERYTHING that’s coming out now), but I had to tell several people at work that I really liked it, but that they should not go see it. I love political satire and shock raunch, and I let people know, but I had to tell my friends who don’t so much like it that that is pretty much all it is.
I think the movie sucks to be frank.
The movie just uses a lot of the over the top scenes to try and get a cheap laugh out of you and thats it.
I’m a big Monty Python fan and even though Monty Python played with themes that were at the time considered to be crossing the line it was genuinely funny the movie had more than “its controversial” going for it.
All Bruno does is take situations that are controversial and put them on display. There is no hint of comedy just cheap laughs and to be frank its not surprising the movie failed.
I think his acting career is over to be honest.
His movies don’t go down that well in the worldwide box office and Americans seem to buy it up. This time it seems like the Americans didn’t buy into it either so it’s unlikely anybody will bother watching anything else he is in.
I was hoping that it would be the end of Cohen’s film career, but I doubt it.
Worse comes to worse, he can transition into other films. Two of his best roles were in Talledaga Nights and Sweeny Todd.
To be quite honest, I was SHOCKED when I saw it. It crossed some lines that I wasn’t expecting it to. There were bits I could not bare looking at the screen. I think Sacha is a genius, his criticisms to society are spot-on but he goes way over the top with this one. I’m a fan of his, so I enjoyed the movie ‘overall’, but many other friends of mine thought it was a terrible movie and recommended others NOT to see it.
John when you see the film you’ll know why- Even though I thought it was really funny (I gave it a 9 out of 10) people were walking out of the theater because it crosses many lines as far as mainstream is concerned. There’s a simulated sex act that he does on the spirit of Mili Vinilli that is out and out pornographic. It’s stunning how vile it was. People were groaning during that segment. While many like myself were buckled over in laughter( I just couldn’t help but laugh) there were plenty of pissed off people when the film ended. Many were saying that it was like watching porn.
This was way too much for many people and they have rejected it and are spreading- don’t go see this word of mouth. Personally it was as funny as anything I can remember. Still it probably could have been rated NC-17 although it got an R. We all know the studio would never release it NC-17 and would have kept cutting to get it an R.In its current form I say it right there at NC-17. So in a nutshell-as far as mid America is concerned Bruno did cross the line of good taste.
chuck
I agree with what you’re saying Chuck, but will go one step further. Being that this movie is catering to the Gay lifestyle, I didn’t think mainstream Christian America would buy into it. Then after watching it, my God, some of those scenes are WAY too outrageous for a movie rated 14A in Canada!
It’s not like porn, it is porn (albeit soft core, but still). This movie was set to “shock” and that it did. I do think this is the end of the Cohen Characters, unless he tries Ali G in America!
i suggested me and my friends go see it and they all said no cause a few of them have seen it and told me it was a porno pretty much
Oh please. Leave the mainstream “Christian America” out of it, Godfather. How many times has the mainstream “Christian America” gone after Harry Potter? They went after “DaVinci Code” a few years ago-and the film was a hit despite being dull. But what caused “Angels & Demons” to fall?
Also, wasn’t there a scene in Borat where he crashed a Christian convention gathering? If that was so offensive to “Christian America”, why was “Borat” that big of a hit?
Could I offer another possibility?
Maybe it was the same approach with a more annoying character, and people got tired of it.
Still, while the dropoff was massive- the film still made some cash, and will continue to do so.
Actually Darren, “Christian America” has never gone after Harry Potter or DaVinci Code. Some very small and insignificant fraction groups did, but not “Christian America” the way the media made it out to look like.
And Godfather… America is not “Christian America” anymore. Christians are the minority in America now.
John,
Really, Christions are the minority? What is the majority then and do you have any backup for that statement?
Actually, 78% of Americans claim to be Christian. That number includes all forms of Christianity including protestants, Catholics, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witness. If you reduce the number merely to protestants the number drops to around 50%.
Reduced further only about 26% of Americans claim to be “evangelical” which is about as many people who claim to be Catholics.
16% of the population is either atheist or “non-religious. While less than 5% is part of some sort of non-Christian religion.
It should also be noted that all of these numbers are based on self-identification and don’t necessarily represent how serious these people are about their faith. A more telling number is that only 42% of Americans attend church weekly.
So, basically a majority of the population is religious, but no one religious denomination can claim to represent a clear majority.
I got these numbers from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States. The sources they cited seemed to be on the level.
I blame Harry Potter.
I don’t think they have exactly the same audience
@ John
Well, it’s two target audiences..but the age group that grew up with the Harry Potter movies, we’ll say they started in 5th grade (the target audience, age 10-11). I would suggest that those same teens also got attached to Borat when it came out. However, a teen would probably be more inclined to follow something they’d been following for year (HP) than something like Bruno…which looks funny…but the teens probably are thinking of renting nowadays.
Idk, just a thought.
Wow, I totally butchered that comment, sorry. In the first sentence, I was simply saying that the two movies target different audiences…but that the teens who saw the HP movies also ended up seeing Borat.
Also, in another sentence I meant “..follow something they’d been following for years (plural)…”
And one last thing…They would choose HP over Bruno because Borat set the bar for public shock value…but now that kinda thing is so overdone that Bruno was just another guy trolling the streets.
I’m totally sorry for making that more confusing than it needed to be. It’s late over here. My bad.
Of course it dropped. We were all sick of it before it even premiered.