High five! Murdoch signs up Borat 2

Sacha Baron Cohen has signed up to do a sequel to his popular Borat movie based on the controversial Kazach journalist, according to Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, whose film division last year released the first Borat film.

Mr Baron Cohen is currently working on a film to follow Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, but it will be based on another one of his characters, Bruno, a gay Austrian fashion show presenter.

Universal Studios won the rights to the new film 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”.