Historic Box-Office Death Spiral, Legal Woes Take Brüno From Bad to Worse
So! Just how bad are things for Brüno, anyway, whose weekend grosses plunged nearly 73 percent from its opening frame barely a week ago? Pretty bad, actually, when you look at the history it made at the box office -- and the history it might be about to make in the courtroom.
First things first: Remember Richelle Olson, the Palmdale, Calif., woman who sued star Sacha Baron Cohen and distributor Universal, claiming a charity-bingo melee during the film shoot left her brain-damaged? Uni refuted her suit as baseless, and after reviewing the footage (which -- SPOILER ALERT -- didn't make the film's final cut), Olson's lawyer recently dropped their original assault and battery claim from the complaint. But they're holding fast to the charges of emotional distress that they say caused her to fall and hit her head minutes later, causing a pair of "brain bleeds."
The ball's in Uni's court, but it has an even more urgent Brüno-related hemorrhage to address in the immediate term. A fun ride through the numbers, if you please:
· Brüno's $8.374 million week-two take represented a 72.7 percent drop from its $30.6 million opening. That ties it with Doom -- another Universal stinker -- for the third-worst plunge of any film released on more than 2,500 screens. Ever.
· That also ties it with Doom for the fitfh-worst tally for any film on 2,000+ screens.
· Among history's first-place weekend finishers, only one film -- this year's Friday the 13th -- had a bigger week-two drop (80.4 percent) than Brüno and Doom.
Other analysts around the Web have their own ways of looking at it, acknowledging the Brüno crisis while pointing to the profitable film in the wreckage. I guess that's fair, if beside the point: For the first time in a decade, Baron Cohen is an irrelevant comic. Attribute it to Harry Potter or Irish curmudgeons or whatever, but when he follows a global phenomenon with a historic flop, and the biggest thing he has forthcoming is a legal defense, that seems problematic. He made $15 million for this film! Shouldn't Hollywood be more concerned today?
· 'Bruno' victim's lawyer lashes back at Universal [THR Esq]
· Biggest Second-Weekend Drops [Box Office Mojo]
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Comments
What made Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat humor enjoyable/painful/interesting/great was watching real interactions. Bruno was much more scripted, which kind of made the point of making people uncomfortable irrelevant.
The real problem for Bruno is that Bruno was never as funny a character as Borat. There was never as large a market for Bruno as there was for Borat, which makes me wonder why Universal spent so much money on it.
On the other hand, calling Cohen irrelevant when his movie opened so well is a great example of a blogger wildly exaggerating to add spice to a story.
I think the main problem here with Brüno is that it relies on riding Borat's coattails for its success. When Borat was released in 2006 it was a new hybrid of comedy, almost like 84 minutes of viral video. Brüno exchanges obnoxious foreigner for obnoxious homosexual foreigner, and definitely breaks no new ground. I found the film humorous, but it was mostly like trading in Vanilla Bean for plain Vanilla; basically the same, but not quite as good.
This only further cements my feelings that 'Bruno' is a superior film to 'Borat' to begin with. Popularity, at the box office or elsewhere, is hardly the most reliable barometer for quality.
Case in point, the most popular comedy of the summer is basically a dudes-only remake of that Ashton Kutcher movie where the guy wakes up with no memory of what he did the night before and hijinks ensue. I think it was called "Dude, What Happened In Vegas?"
Memo to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson:
See, kid? I toldya people would still be talkin' about Doom for YEARS after it's been released!
Good work, son. Solid.
Solid... as a rock!