‘Borat 2’ Had a Stronger Opening Weekend Than ‘Mulan’
By George Robbins
Just this previous weekend, we saw the release of a film that we never would have imagined that we would actually end up seeing any time soon, ‘Borat 2.’ The movie was suddenly announced after it was discovered that people noticed actor Sacha Baron Cohen dressed as the titular character driving around in a used car. It turns out that the film was not only already done filming, but also that the movie was screened for executives and was in the process of being developed enough that it would be available for people to watch it. The question after that was just how were they going to screen the film for audiences and how would the film turn out. It turns out that we did not have to wait long to find out as, just after it was announced that the film actually existed, Amazon announced that the film would be available on Prime Video for people to watch.
Not only was it announced that it would be available on Prime Video, but it was also announced that the movie would be out on the platform before the end of October. Thus, on Friday October 23rd, ‘Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm,’ or simply ‘Borat 2,’ was released to the public. Although the movie was released on Prime Video and it is free to Prime users, the fact remains that there is a subscription for Prime that must be paid to watch the film. Just like any other Prime titles, this is nothing new, but it was a surprise to find out that the movie actually performed exceedingly well even though it was released in such a way. So how do they actually measure that metric, they base it on viewership, and more specifically, the number of people signed into their accounts to watch the film.
What came as a result of this check in viewership is the fact that ‘Borat 2’ managed to outperform the movie ‘Mulan’ when comparing the two films’ opening weekends. The release of ‘Mulan’ was one that ended up being plagued by a variety of different issues, but even so, the film performed relatively well on Disney+. Despite the number of controversies that ended up surrounding the movie, the fact remains that the movie did actually manage to raise viewership on the platform despite the issues people had with the film. While suffering overseas in China where they had hoped the film would do well, it actually managed to make Disney+ even more poignant as a platform, especially in the view of Disney themselves. This has even helped Disney to shift their main focus to streaming some of their upcoming titles as well instead of waiting for theaters to become a viable option.
Considering how much of an increase Disney reported to their sight after the release of ‘Mulan,’ it is sort of surprising to hear that ‘Borat 2’ ended up being so successful in getting high viewership numbers. At the same time, it isn’t all that surprising because not as many people were excited about the release of ‘Mulan’ as they were for ‘Borat 2.’ This is mainly because no one thought that ‘Borat 2’ would ever exist in their lifetimes considering what was said already about the retiring of the character. Also, a good portion of the people who saw ‘Mulan’ were just trying to see how well the movie held up as a live-action version of the original animated film whereas people watching ‘Borat 2’ just wanted to experience the new film. In either case, these two releases have been a huge plus to digital releases as a whole and are helping the current market.