Borat star’s next film sparks bidding war
Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:38 AM ET
By Borys Kit
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - “Bruno,” English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to next week’s release “Borat,” triggered an intense bidding war in Hollywood on Thursday.
By early evening, sources said leading contender Universal Pictures had offered more than $42 million for worldwide rights to the film.
As in the case of “Borat,” Jay Roach would produce with Baron Cohen. No director is on board, though it has been reported that Baron Cohen wants to shoot the movie in the summer.
In “Bruno,” he will call upon another of his alter egos, a gay fashionista from Austria. Bruno fancies himself as “the voice of Austrian youth TV.” In his appearances on Baron Cohen’s “Da Ali G Show,” the character sashayed from New York Fashion Week to Miami nightclubs.
Fox, one of the contenders for “Bruno,” is releasing the Larry Charles-directed “Borat” on November 3. Concerned that the movie wasn’t registering strongly enough in tracking polls, the studio has scaled back its opening to about 800 theaters in hopes of building word-of-mouth.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
