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"Borat" -- Bomb or Da Bomb?

Posted Nov 3rd 2006 2:38PM by TMZ Staff

Borat With its relentless PR campaign and endless stream of positive reviews, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" finally opens in theaters today. Despite the good buzz, the film's box office take will be on the watch list.

The movie was originally slated to open on about 2,000 screens, but was scaled back to 837 -- low tracking numbers being the cause. In comparison, "Santa Clause 3" and "Flushed Away" are opening wide on 3,707 and 3,458 screens, respectively. Put the two together and "Borat" has virtually no chance of opening in the top slot.

How far will it fall?

Two of the leading box office tracking websites, The-Numbers.com and BoxOfficeMojo.com, are predicting less-than-stellar receipts; The-Numbers.com has "Borat" opening in sixth place with just $5 million. BoxOfficeMojo.com predicts a slightly more positive opening; fourth place and $10.5 million. The budget for the film was just $17 million.

The news isn't all bad for Kazakhstan's least favorite son. Fandango.com surveyed thousands of moviegoers planning to see "Borat" and found that 96% are planning to see it this weekend. The site also reports that through yesterday at 3PM PT, 72% of ticket sales on the site were for "Borat."

Tags: borat, sasha baron cohen, SashaBaronCohen

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46. Actually, Kazakhstan DOES exist (check your atlas), and they really dislike Cohen, so I suggest "No, you S.T.U.F." take his/her own advice, and also head to Kazakhstan is he/she is craving intelligent discourse.

Posted at 7:07PM on Nov 8th 2006 by Noel

47. Yes, No. 44, African-Americans make fun of themselves all the time, and therein lies the crucial difference: They are mocking their own ethnic group, which seems to be acceptable to most Americans. Cohen is NOT a Muslim; Cohen is NOT a Kazakhstani. So what are his "creds" for mocking people from other ethnic backgrounds? The character Borat's anti-semitism is meant to show what a racist and anti-Semite he is. Prejudice may be "crap" to you, something to laugh at, but people who live with it would disagree--from the point of view of actual knowledge and experience.

Posted at 7:24PM on Nov 8th 2006 by Noel

48. No. 43, the word "Kazakhstan" is a transliteration of a word written in another alphabet and using sounds that are not used in English. So literally speaking, one couldn't "misspell" the word in our language. The young lady to whom you responded simply used a form at variance with the common English-language rendering. But one notices that these postings (including mine) tend to be written in haste. Perhaps it's more realistic to confine criticisms to the substance of the message, and politely ignore grammatical and spelling errors, as we all make them on-line, isn't that so, No. 43?

Posted at 7:26PM on Nov 8th 2006 by Noel

49. Noel, Cohen's mother is a Iranian Jew.

And in America, we have a little thing called the 1st Amendemnt, people can be as repulsive and hateful as they want, the only one that will pull him off the air is the free market.

Posted at 8:53PM on Nov 9th 2006 by Tom

50. I found the movie disgusting and perverted!!! It should be banned in the U.S. also!

Posted at 1:58PM on Nov 12th 2006 by Donna

51. Number 1 two weeks in a row! TMZ called it again!

NOT!

Posted at 6:29PM on Nov 20th 2006 by Sir Mildred Pierce

52. TMZ: Your crystal ball seems to be a bit cloudy. A GREAT movie, BTW!

Posted at 1:28AM on Dec 9th 2006 by Anthony

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