What Went Wrong: Brüno
By Shalimar Sahota
December 2, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Brüno would be a risky venture for any studio. Universal won a bidding war, picking up the film for $42 million, and this was before Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat had even opened. This allowed them to distribute the film in the US and certain territories across Europe and covered the $20 - 25 million budget. After seeing the success 20th Century Fox had with Borat ($128 million at the US box office, with $261 million worldwide), it appeared that Universal had made a sound investment.
Marketing went into overdrive with a set of risqué posters and publicity stills. There was also plenty of "exposure," with a stunt at the MTV Movie Awards resulting in Brüno landing in Eminem’s lap. A few weeks later he appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, giving him a lap dance. The day before the film opened he was on the Today show, describing how the conflict in the Middle East was down to fashion, because he too would blow himself up if all he had in his wardrobe were, “a black burka and some sandals.” Plus there were the all too frequent news stories of someone suing Cohen.
The film opened on July 10, 2009 and made it to #1 that weekend with a take of $30.6 million. Although expected to open higher, with some analysts even predicting an opening in the region of $40 million, especially after taking $14.4 on its opening day, this was still a good result. However, the film suffered a large decline on its second weekend, and was down to #4. To be fair, it was up against the opening weekend of Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince. But whereas other films in the top ten managed to hold with drops at under 50%, Brüno plummeted a monstrous 72% with a take of $8.3 million. This only proved just how front-loaded it was.
The thin excuse for a story involved fashion reporter Brüno being ousted from his own TV show in Germany. So, he decides to move to Los Angeles in an effort to reinvent himself, interviewing celebrities for his new show. The film can’t help but be compared to Borat, since this was pretty much the same formula under a different disguise. However, one of the main issues was the character, for Cohen’s TV incarnation of Brüno had undergone a slight transformation for the big screen. This was less about fashion and more about trying to be a satire on celebrity and homophobia.
In Borat, to a certain degree, people were often willing to put up with him due to his foreign naivety. On the other hand, Brüno is attacked, thrown out of places, and even his cameraman is set upon. This is an unlikeable character that wants to be liked. That he’s openly gay was just one of the problems. It doesn’t help when he’s an arrogantly, flamboyant, narcissistic, celebrity-stalker, who’s so sexually obsessed that he’ll even try to sleep with straight guys!
Brüno is a character designed to provoke a reaction and make other people feel uncomfortable via his sexuality. For example, how are you supposed to react if he opened your tent in the middle of the night, was completely naked, and asked to come in because he says a bear ate all his clothes, but left some condoms?
Some people clearly don’t want to have anything to do with homosexuals, let alone watch a film about one. There are few mainstream films where the main character is gay. There are fewer that obtain a wide release and become box office successes. Those that come to mind include Philadelphia and The Birdcage. The most recent is Brokeback Mountain, though it’s debateable whether the two lead characters are bisexual or homosexual. With the help of plenty of awards, it earned $83 million in the US and a total of $178 million worldwide.
Those against homosexuality were obviously going to avoid Brüno, but when you have gay rights groups upset and refusing to back with a film with a lead gay character, then something has definitely gone wrong. Believing that the film might do more harm than good, Jarrett Barrios, president of The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), saw an early screening and described how the film will, “hit the gay community pretty hard and reinforce some damaging, hurtful stereotypes.” He eventually released a statement on the Monday after Brüno’s opening weekend, which said how the film, “ultimately misses the mark,” and that he found it “frustrating and discouraging to be confronted with a movie that wants to increase America’s discomfort with homophobia, but which for much of America, seems likely to decrease its comfort with gay people.”
The film took $138.8 million over the world, with only $60 million coming from the US box office. It wasn’t exactly a flop, but it was far from the success that Borat was, which many were predicting. One could argue that having the film under perform at the box office might have unintentionally proved a point about homophobia in America.
Also, whereas Borat had stellar word-of-mouth working for it, Brüno didn’t. The film caused a number of walkouts, mainly upon two scenes. If they weren’t already offended by an early moment of gay sex, then it would have been a talking penis that got people to leave. One has to wonder what kind of film they thought they were going to see when paying for they tickets. Some articles even cropped up stating how Brüno suffered from "The Twitter Effect," given that there were a large number of negative posts about the film during its opening weekend, which likely led to its dramatic decline.
Upon first seeing the trailer, I was pretty much taken in. What stopped me from seeing it on the big screen was when the reviews came in. Although mostly positive, of those critics that did like it, many appeared to agree that even though it’s good, it’s no Borat. Basically, if there’s a film already out there that did this kind of shtick better, then I’d rather wait for the DVD.
The humor was more cringe-worthy rather than outright funny. I didn’t laugh so much when watching it, but oddly found myself laughing afterwards when thinking about it. It was also easier to see what exactly was set-up and what wasn’t. While Borat was fresh the first time around, those swayed by the curiosity of it back then weren’t coming back for seconds.