On an American highway, furry friend scares other motorists - and Borat as well - in a scene from the movie 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'. - Contributed
LOS ANGELES, (Reuters):
Borat led the worldwide box office for a second weekend, thanks to a boost in the number of North American theatres playing the comedy phenomenon.
The 'mockumentary' about a Jew-fearing Kazakh TV reporter's eventful U.S. road trip, earned US$29 million across the United States and Canada in the three days beginning Nov. 10, and US$15 million from 20 foreign territories, distributor 20th Century Fox said on Sunday.
The film's star, English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, found himself in the unusual position of outranking three Hollywood megastars, Will Ferrell, Russell Crowe and Brad Pitt.
Ferrell's offbeat comedy Stranger Than Fiction opened at No. 4 with a respectable US$14.1 million, while Crowe's new romantic comedy A Good Year bombed at No. 10 with US$3.8 million. Pitt's ensemble drama Babel jumped 14 places to No. 6 with US$5.7 million in its first weekend of wide release.
Stunning Hollywood pundits
A week after stunning Hollywood pundits with a US$26 million opening from just 837 theatres across North America, 'Borat' expanded to about 2,566 locations in its second round. That was Fox's original intention for the first weekend, but poor pre-release surveys forced it to downscale its plan.
In the end, Borat did break out beyond twentysomethings and movie critics, and the film's hefty second-weekend numbers confirm that it has become a must-see event.
Directed guerrilla-style by Larry Charles, a former Seinfeld writer/producer, the film cost about US$18 million to make. Fox is a unit of News Corp.
The No. 2 and No. 3 films were unchanged from last week. The Walt Disney Co. Christmas comedy The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause earned US$16.9 million, followed by the DreamWorks Animation SKG-produced Flushed Away with US$16.7 million. Their respective totals rose to US$41 million and US$39.9 million.
The unforeseen mainstream success of Borat and the surprisingly strong hold of the two family movies put a dampener on the opening for Stranger than Fiction, in which Ferrell plays an everyday man tormented by an inner voice created by a novelist (Emma Thompson).
Within expectations
"Fourth is never what you plan," said Jeff Blake, chairman of world-wide marketing and distribution at Columbia Pictures. Still, he said the opening was within expectations, and exit surveys were bullish.
The movie, which cost less than US$30 million to make, was directed by Marc Forster, the Swiss filmmaker behind Finding Neverland. Columbia is a unit of Sony Corp.
Crowe's A Good Year, which already tanked in Britain, played primarily to older moviegoers, a crowd sensitive to movie reviews, which, in this case, were dire.
The Fox release, directed by Ridley Scott, revolves around a frazzled British financial trader (Crowe) who savours the simpler life in France after he inherits a vineyard. The film is based on the novel written by Peter Mayle.
Babel, released by Paramount Vantage, the arthouse arm of Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, has earned US$7.5 million after three weekends. It expanded this weekend to 1,251 theatres, up from 55 last weekend. A spokesman said he was happy with the film's performance.
Also new was the horror The Return, starring scream queen Sarah Michelle Gellar, which opened at No. 8 with US$4.8 million, a figure termed 'very disappointing' by a spokesman for its distributor, Rogue Pictures. Gellar's core audience of suburban girls showed up, and the Latino contingent was also heavy because of the spiritual content, he noted. Rogue is the genre unit of Focus Features, which is owned by General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal Inc.
