While plaintiffs keep losing lawsuits over Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen is apparently finding fresh targets in his new guise as Bruno, the gay Austrian journalist.
Universal ponied up more than $42 million for Bruno and is eyeing an October release, so it may not be coincidence that suspicious news and video from Kansas surfaced in late March. Local papers and the Associated Press all seemed fooled, soberly reporting about a fuss at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport.
Members of a film crew “had permission from the airport to film a scene on March 18 based on a ‘European man’ visiting America,” the AP said. “But security workers became concerned when they began dancing in tight short shorts, kissing and fighting in the lobby.”
Ruckus recalls the runup to the release of Borat, especially accounts of the Kazakh journalist mangling the national anthem and getting booed out of a Virginia rodeo.
Speaking of Fox’s blockbuster, the latest of many lawsuits (by a businessman chased down Fifth Avenue in the film) was dismissed by a New York judge April 2, partly on grounds that the film was a social critique.
With no suit having drawn blood, Universal’s wager on gullible Americans is looking more viable all the time.
Credit: Variety
