Friday brought a dose of both good and worrisome news for Universal Pictures, the studio behind "Bruno."
The good news: The second feature comedy starring Sacha Baron Cohen of "Borat" fame had sold $14.4 million worth of tickets on its opening day, a strong start that, under most circumstances, would mean the film was on its way to grossing close to $40 million in the U.S. and Canada for the three-day weekend.
The worrisome news: A representative sample of moviegoers had given "Bruno" a "C," according to market research firm CinemaScore. Considering what easy graders audiences typically are, that's an extremely low mark and signified bad word of mouth that could cause ticket sales to quickly sink.
That's exactly what happened Saturday, as box-office revenue plunged to $8.8 million. The 39% drop is the biggest for any film this year except "Hannah Montana," which opened on Good Friday, when its youthful audience was out of school and thus able to attend opening-day matinees.
The Saturday decline for "Bruno" is the second biggest in modern history for a movie that didn't open on a holiday weekend, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, behind only the hugely anticipated "Twilight."
It's difficult to discern whether audiences' dislike for "Bruno" stemmed from Cohen's outrageous antics, boredom with a routine similar to that of "Borat," or, perhaps, discomfort with the film's graphic sexuality and male nudity. Whatever the reason, as grosses quickly dwindled for "Bruno," it ended up earning a studio-estimated $30.4 million for the weekend.
As a result, it's extremely unlikely that "Bruno" will gross even $100 million, let alone the $128.5 million that "Borat" made in the U.S. and Canada.
Nonetheless, neither Universal nor Media Rights Capital, which financed "Bruno," could be too disappointed with the movie's overall performance, particularly given that it earned $25 million overseas, $20 million of that from the eight foreign territories controlled by Universal.
The studio paid Media Rights Capital $42.5 million to release the movie and negotiated a hefty distribution fee of 25% -- money it takes off the top for its services.
Universal is thus well on its way to earning a profit on the picture.
Media Rights Capital is also in a good position, since it sold the rights for a bigger sum than it cost to produce "Bruno" and will make even more from its cut of the revenue.
