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Speaking at a media conference in NY, Rupert Murdoch was apparently so overcome by the rush of updating the press about the latest phases of News Corp.'s ruthless plans for global takeover (there's nothing quite like basking in the shocked gasps of an audience that's just been told that an army of MySpace predators has been dispatched to infiltrate the day care center at Viacom headquarters) that he let slip that Sacha Baron Cohen will return to Fox for a Borat sequel. The Financial Times reports that Murdoch claimed Cohen will regrow his mustache and don his famously unwashed suit once he's done shooting Bruno:

Universal Studios won the rights to [Bruno] last year. However, once that is completed, Mr Baron Cohen will "come back and do Borat Two," Mr Murdoch said during an interview at a conference in New York.

The revelation of plans for another Borat movie, which have not been announced by Mr Murdoch's film studios or Mr Baron Cohen, will come as some surprise as the huge popularity of Borat has led people to believe it would be hard for the character to continue to fool people into speaking to him. [...]

Mr Murdoch said his 20th Century Fox film division did look at buying the rights to the Bruno movie but that they were not prepared to outbid rivals as Mr Baron Cohen "would not even show us the script".

The Borat movie has generated huge earnings for News Corp, and its film division reported record earnings on Wednesday.

Mr Murdoch, speaking at a conference organised by McGraw-Hill, said he had seen the first Borat movie three times and "laughed like hell".

How to execute another Borat film that now the character is universally recognized (and a frequent target of lawsuits) is a secondary concern; as the original approaches $250 million in worldwide box office, Fox doesn't particularly care if the sequel consists of nothing more than footage of the faux Kazakh's "victims" trying to concentrate on reading some lengthy legal waivers as Borat's hirsute, overweight producer once again tries to suffocate him with the respiration-hampering fumes of his fetid taint.