2/8/2007

Jeannine Coppola

Rupert Murdoch says we'll see Sacha Cohen again, but not as "Borat."

Although it was only yesterday that Chairman and CEO of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, announced there would be a sequel to the culture-clash comedy, *Borat*, Murdoch now says he spoke too soon. Apparently the Australian-born media director "was under the mistaken impression that Sacha Cohen had signed a deal."  
  
Instead of playing Borat again, Sacha Cohen will star as a gay fashion reporter in *Bruno*, his project which was rejected by 20th Century Fox but was later picked up by Universal for a reported $42 million.  
  
*Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan* has grossed $248 million worldwide, and Cohen's performance in the film won him a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy, while its screenplay has been nominated for an Academy Award. However, one of the biggest problems with filming a *Borat 2* would be the difficulty finding people who didn't already recognize Cohen and/or want to file a lawsuit against him. The film has not only been banned in Russia and protested against in Kazakhstan, but a South Carolina man is suing both Fox and Cohen for a bathroom scene that did not make the final cut version of the movie, but was circulated on the Internet and may be on the DVD release which comes out on March 6, 2007. Furthermore, a Los Angeles judge refused to order that a scene featuring two drunken college students be cut from the DVD version of *Borat*, the Kazakhstan natives claimed they were outraged at being portrayed as "bumpkins and criminals," and an etiquette teacher in the movie has requested that the California attorney general investigate the methods used by *Borat*'s producers to get people on camera.  
  
Cohen can also be seen in Tim Burton's adaptation of *Sweeney Todd*, which also stars Johnny Depp as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.