Sacha Baron Cohen almost managed to get away with filming Borat 2 in secret, but in the social media age where information can be spread rapidly across the world with the push of a button, it still remains impressive that he was able to complete almost the entire movie without being rumbled until footage of him in character surfaced earlier this year.
Given that the intrepid Kazakh reporter’s first big screen outing became a cultural phenomenon and pulled in over $260 million at the box office back in 2006 and made the character instantly recognizable the world over, Cohen had no choice but to build that into the sequel’s narrative, adding another meta layer onto the mockumentary by having the actor disguised as Borat disguised as other people.
Amazon reportedly shelled out $80 million for the exclusive rights to Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, and their decision has already been vindicated after it pulled in huge numbers over the first weekend it was available. Now, a new report claims that the second stab at skewering American culture also scored one of the biggest digital premieres of 2020.
The data from ScreenEngine polls subscribers of the various streaming services about what they’ve been watching within the first seven days a new title has been available, and their findings have determined that Borat 2 sits in second place behind only Disney Plus’ filmed recording of the global smash hit Hamilton.
While concrete figures aren’t available, Amazon have been touting the success of Borat 2 themselves, so the surprise sequel definitely pulled in massive numbers regardless of how accurate the latest data is. Given this, it’s probably safe to assume that Cohen will likely never get away with trying to play the character in secret again.
