It's been less than a month since Universal laid out $42 million for the rights to Sacha Baron Cohen's next project, Bruno, but questions are already arising about whether Cohen's Borat-derived fame (and a wave of pesky lawsuits from the film's unwitting co-stars) will compromise the comedian's ability to once again expose America's not-so-latent intolerant attitudes, this time by adopting the disarming persona of a flaming Austrian TV host in a mesh shirt/bedazzled chaps ensemble who interviews monster truck fans outside the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex about whether they think Power Bottom will "win the game." The LAT discusses the aforementioned fame and legal problems, and also brings up perhaps the most substantial obstacle to Bruno's success:

On Friday, THR brought word of a multistudio bidding war for the worldwide distribution rights to Sacha Baron Cohen's next movie, Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt, an auction obviously timed to maximize the comedian's take before Borat's upcoming, scaled-back release could threaten a market correction for his guerrilla filmmaking services. Today, they follow up with news that Universal won the Bruno sweepstakes with their $42.5 million offer, which they note covers the film's budget and features a "significant backend component," subtle contractual language that we suspect Cohen himself required be included in any report of his agency's eight-figure buggering of the studio. With this deal completed and his considerable Borat promotional responsibilities dispensed of, Cohen can soon begin the crucial work of devising ways to goad Bruno's homeland into a prolonged public war intended to dispel the notion that Austria's population is wholly comprised of neon-mohawked, fashion-obsessed television hosts preoccupied with sexually menacing American college football teams.