HollywoodIdiocy.com

According to online media reports, Sacha Baron Cohen has received the green light to make a sequel to his subversive, politically-incorrect comedy, Borat. However, the tentatively-titled Borat 2 won’t be zooming into theaters in 2007, since the comic is hard at work on his next film, already in production, which focuses on his gay Austrian fashonista character, Bruno. Universal owns the rights to the Bruno movie while Fox/NewsCorp holds the Borat rights.

The big question is this. When filming Borat, Baron Cohen’s work and characters were known by only a small portion of US households who watched Da Ali G Show on HBO. Now, in the wake of the first movie’s huge popularity and box office success, the real question becomes whether the proposed Borat 2 will be another guerrilla-film-making experience, or whether a second film will be forced to move to a more traditional “scripted comedy” style of film making, since it’s doubtful that Baron Cohen can fool people as easily now that his face and the character’s name are well-known.

Considering that Baron Cohen and Fox are still facing fraud lawsuits over the first film, it’s hard to say which way they franchise will go, although a fully scripted and acted comedy would certainly reduce the shock-n-awe appeal of the first film. The difference in approach could make the two films seem as different from each other as The Blair Witch Projects “discovered footage, maybe this is real” approach, and “Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows” lame casted drama sequel, that never pretended to be anything but a standard teen horror flick.

Whatever happens, Baron Cohen may want to invest in some disaster kits to deal with possible reactions when any new “victims” find out they’ve been “Borat-ed.”

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