Ali G: Dumped Into 23 Theaters, Cohen Fights Back

This is not a release strategy. This is a studio quietly hoping a movie disappears. Amazon MGM Studios has dumped Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G: Who Iz I? into just 23 theaters for one weekend only, with no announced plan to stream it on Prime afterwards. In most of those theaters, the film is not even playing on Sunday. The one reported exception is the AMC Palisades 21 in West Nyack, New York, where it runs four times a day through the week — and the manager there, asked why his theater kept it, reportedly said: "It's popular here. I don't know why."

The critics have not been kind either. The film sits at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, with top critics much lower, and the notices read like obituaries for a character. Variety calls it "dawdling and cumbersome," Toronto's Globe and Mail calls it "laugh free," and The Guardian says if you liked Ali G the first time you will like this less, and if you suspected the character was racist, you will be more emboldened to say so. Cohen's response has been the most Ali G thing imaginable: in character on social media, he told fans to film the movie in theaters and "stick it up on YouTube so no one else has to buy a ticket. Sharing is caring, airrright?"

The stunt, the campaign, and the comeback

Context matters here. The film is Cohen's feature directorial debut, and Ali G's first big-screen outing since Ali G Indahouse in 2002 — 24 years. The story finds Ali G learning his longtime girlfriend Julie, played by Morgana Robinson, is eight months pregnant, then heading to America to reclaim his former glory. The promotion has been pure Cohen: he announced the film in character on Instagram, showed up at the Wimbledon finals dressed as Ali G, and this week turned up at a packed screening to try to throw Noel Gallagher out of his own seat.

Not everyone welcomed the return. Activists have labelled Ali G a racist caricature, and one UK campaign reportedly sent about 37,000 emails to cinemas urging them not to screen it. Cohen answered that directly in an article for Time magazine, writing that he has always designed his characters "as vehicles to expose prejudice, bias, and stupidity," and that "Ali G is a white imbecile; the joke is on him." The honest answer: the debate about the character has followed it since the first trailer, and it is now part of the film's box office story whether Amazon likes it or not.

What happens next

The numbers, so far, have not been officially reported, and with a footprint this small, even modest per-theater averages could make for a fun headline. But the bigger question is what Amazon does next: no streaming date has been announced, and Cohen himself seemed surprised by the scale of the dump when he announced the film in July as simply "starting October 23rd" — he did not say "in West Nyack, New York."

My take: Amazon may have buried the release, but Cohen just turned the burial into the marketing. This is speculation, clearly labelled: the "film it and upload it" stunt will do more for this movie's fame than a normal release ever would. The first Borat made $262.6 million worldwide on an $18 million budget by being impossible to ignore. Twenty years later, Cohen still knows the only release strategy that ever worked for him: become the story.

Related: Clayface Box Office: $23M Opening Wins With A- — the packed weekend Ali G opened against. Also see You Can See Everything: $19M Second Weekend — the other film fighting for the same audience.