Turns out, BRUNO isn’t such a rude, offensive dude afterall, well at least the people behind the movie have heart. Yesterday, BRUNO premiered in L.A. but hours before that, a tragic news hit the world, king of pop, Michael Jackson died. And so..as quick as 1, 2, 3 and A, B, C, according to Hollywood Reporter, Universal Pictures decided to cut a Jackson-related sketch from the movie only hours before its premiere.
The critics who’ve seen the movie and those of you who were lucky enough to catch it in the test screenings would remember this part..
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 an attempt to discover his contact info (Baron Cohen grabs LaToya’s phone), as well as a reference to his trademark white glove, etc, all done in Baron Cohen’s characteristically absurdist tone
It wasn’t necessarily outrageous but the studio wants to respect the Jackson family due to this sad timing.
So now when you go see the movie when it hits theaters on July 10th, 2009, you’ll notice that after the scene showing Baron Cohen’s interviewing Paula Abdul, it then jumps straight to a focus-group for his faux reality show.
The studio said removing the Jackson scene won’t be expensive because most of the prints have not yet been made or shipped.
The report reminded us of that one Spider-Man teaser featuring World Trade Center that was removed due to the tragedy of Sept. 11.
