‘Borat’ continues to rule the American box-office. Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat: Cultural Learning’s of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” took in $29 million to remain the No. 1 movie for a second straight weekend , distributor 20th Century Fox said on Sunday. “Borat” raised its 10-day total to $67.8 million.
The top three movies remained unchanged from the previous weekend, with Disney’s “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause” still in second place with $16.9 million and the Paramount-DreamWorks animated tale “Flushed Away” in third with $16.7 million.
Sony’s Will Ferrell comedy “Stranger Than Fiction” debuted as the best of the weekend’s newcomers, placing fourth with $14.1 million.
While 20th Century Fox could crow about “Borat’, the studio’s Russell Crowe-Ridley Scott reunion “A Good Year” flopped, coming in at No. 10 with $3.8 million.
“Borat” was a surprise winner at the box office with a $26.5 million opening weekend, even though it played in only 837 theaters, less than one-fourth the numbers of cinemas for “The Santa Clause 3″ and “Flushed Away.”
Bruce Snyder, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox said,
The movie generally was panned by critics, and audiences apparently were not willing to accept broody actor Crowe in a romantic lead.
But Snyder said the buzz from the movie’s huge debut proved a great prelude to wider release in its second weekend, when it expanded to 2,566 theaters.
Synder said,
When a picture takes off like this, you can do it any way you want and you can’t screw it up, quite honestly, when a picture becomes a part of the culture like this.
