We hate to give The Wrap’s National Inquirer-style reporting any ink or credence, but perhaps their articles that said Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Brüno” was softened and made more “gay friendly” were somewhere on the money? Then again, their reports were revealed to be nothing more than printing random emails, but still, this one can’t be overlooked.
Movieline is reporting that the original ending of Brüno featured a “brutal gay bashing played out for laughs.”
Apparently a cut screened in February to industry people was far more biting than the tame, “We Are The World”- esque singalong with celebrities like Bono and Coldplay’s Chris Martin that now closes out the film — which we singled out as being a “toothless and with-a-whimpering conclusion” in our review.The film does feature a cage-match UFC championship scenes, which we’ve discussed at length, and evidently the film ended shortly after that moment in the Feb cut.
Writer-director Richard Day (Arrested Development, Ellen) was among the industry figures at the screening. In that version, Day tells Movieline, “The cage-match kiss resulted in a violent attack on the couple. They then cut to a press event where they are announcing their marriage or plans to, I forget which. But the boyfriend is now drooling, seemingly brain-damaged, and in a wheelchair, played for laughs.”
This violence jives with what Vulture wrote yesterday about the sequence via the film’s production notes. The first time they tried to shoot the scene it didn’t work out because the audience flipped out and the police, who got wind of what the scene would be about refused to play security.
Moments after the first embrace between the two men, chairs were pulled up and tossed, a fighter who had been watching from the audience climbed into the cage and challenged Baron Cohen to a fight. Director Charles got none of the footage he needed, but Baron Cohen and the crew escaped just in time. The police did not return to the scene.
Perhaps they used that experience to stage their original ending? Meanwhile, Richard Day was one of the two gay people in the audience and wasn’t entirely thrilled with the scene despite the fact that the rest of the viewers were fine with it.
“Then I started in and Jack joined with his thoughts. By the time I got to the bashing, the audience started defending the movie. They were annoyed with us for ruining the party.”
When Movieline reached out to Universal about the changed ending, their response was, “no comment.” Day said Sacha Baron Cohen and “Brüno”director Larry Charles reached out to him earlier to include a “gay voice,” but after an initial meeting with the filmmakers he never heard back. “I guess he was overruled or I blew the meeting or something. I remember telling them it read like it was written by people who didn’t know much about actual gay life, but I don’t remember it making me angry or anything.”