Last night was the official premiere of Sacha Baron Cohen's newest film, Bruno, out in LA, and with that came news out of the Risky Biz Blog, stating that a Michael Jackson-related scene was cut for the screening, showing Universal’s sensitivity to the news of Jackson’s passing.
Uni removed a scene in which Bruno, the flamboyant Austrian journalist played by Sacha Baron Cohen, interviews an unsuspecting LaToya Jackson about a number of topics, including her brother.
Among the gags is a joke about the King of Pop's high-pitched voice, as well as a reference to his trademark white glove, all done in Baron Cohen's characteristically absurdist tone.
It looks like Universal decided to pull the scene after having a few meetings, from which they decided to cut the scene, which had been previously in place for press screenings. The reason behind it, as director Larry Charles said, "We decided to take it out for tonight and we’ll reassess before the release whether to keep it out." So actually, the scene could very well be in the final cut. That said, sources have said, particularly The Guardian, that the scene won't be put in the final release, but probably on the DVD instead. I don't know really what to make of this news, as it does seem as a responsible play by Universal for PR reasons, but the price that they will be forced to pay to trim all of probably 2500 film reels is going to be pretty large. Also, reports are conflicting, so it looks like we will all have to wait until opening night to see what happens.
As /Film points out, the most famous example of a studio pulling something for a film happens to be the much talked about teaser for the first Spiderman film, which sees Spiderman hand a group of bank robbers between the two towers of the World Trade Center. Check out that trailer below, and let me know what you think of this news?
Go see something good!
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