Tuesday, October 24, 2006

"Borat" Tracking Lower Than "Babel" and "Catch A Fire?"

I cover movies and I BARELY know what "Catch A Fire" is. But studio tracking says that movie and the art house film "Babel" (starring Brad Pitt) have more "awareness" than "Borat." That just proves how out of whack tracking figures have become. Some wonder whether "Borat" is this season's "Snakes On A Plane." But the comparison is wrong: "Borat" is still a movie most people are going to discover on opening weekend when they see the reviews and hear the raves of their friends. "SOAP" was held out of theaters so long that even my MOTHER knew about the film and got tired of the noise around it. And of course "Snakes" got terrible reviews and "Borat" is getting raves. It will indeed be one of the hits of the fall and -- thanks to an $18 million budget -- very profitable. I can't link to the Variety story about this, because you need a subscription. Creator Sacha Baron Cohen is already working on a similar film with another character to film next year. But how long can he stay under the radar and get away with his pranks? "Borat" is going to make him more famous than ever.

2 comments:

priv8pete said...

Check out the Google Trends of the three titles. Babel certainly gets searched more, but how much because of the movie?

Michael in New York said...

Interesting. In the story's case, they're [olling specifically about movies and whether people are familiar with the title and their interest level in seeing it. And given your info,I find it even harder to believe Catch A Fire is tracking higher.