go Borat!

Borat - the acclaimed comedy tracing the Jew-fearing title character's road trip across the United States - stunned observers by opening at No.1 on Sunday with ticket sales of $US26.4 million, more than double the most optimistic forecasts.

The Twentieth Century Fox release was expected to open somewhere in the top-five, certainly well behind presumed new champ, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, which had to be content with a No.2 opening on ticket sales of $US20 million.

Fox released Borat in just 837 theatres across the US and Canada, down from initial plans of 2500 theatres, because polling indicated that huge enthusiasm among critics and the MySpace crowd had not spread to mainstream moviegoers.

In the end, it appeared that naked wrestling, toilet jokes and anti-semitic satire hold universal appeal. Borat also earned more than $US17 million overseas after opening in 17 countries, and was No.1 in at least Britain and Germany, according to preliminary Fox data.

"It's broad, slapstick humour but with a real intelligence hidden below the surface," said Bruce Snyder, Fox's president of domestic theatrical distribution.

English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen stars in the title role as a TV reporter making a documentary about the US for his impoverished countrymen. Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles, a former Seinfeld writer/producer, made the $US18 million film guerrilla-style.

NUDITY, SPECIAL CHEESE

Their "co-stars", often not in on the joke, get to look aghast as Borat runs naked through a hotel or offers cheese he claims was made from his wife's breast milk. Or otherwise they don't blink an eyelid as Borat tries to buy a gun suitable for shooting Jews.

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