NewsCord has put cinema chains in the U.K. on notice over Ali G: Who Iz I?, launching a campaign on Wednesday that urges cinemas around the world to refuse to screen the film. The move comes after Amazon MGM released the trailer earlier this week and before the Oct. 23 release date, turning one title into a live distribution dispute.
As of Friday, NewsCord said it had been instructed to send more than 36,000 emails. That scale matters because this is no local protest: it is a coordinated attempt to crowd inboxes and push screening decisions before a ticket goes on sale, rather than after the film is already on the schedule.
NewsCord and 36,000 emails
More than 36,000 emails were part of the push by Friday, and the demand was simple: cinemas around the world should refuse to screen the film. For exhibitors, that means the pressure is arriving before release rather than after opening-night chatter, which makes the campaign a test of whether chains will hold their booking line or avoid a dispute over a title tied to Sacha Baron Cohen.
For readers tracking the business side, the practical question is not whether the trailer drew attention. It is whether the campaign can move actual screening plans before Oct. 23. That is the point at which a boycott effort stops being online noise and starts competing with a distributor’s release schedule. See also Bob Odenkirk lifts Normal Movies onto Sky Cinema and NOW for another example of how cinema-facing programming decisions shape rollout strategy.
Picturehouse Cinemas and the reply
Picturehouse Cinemas responded, “We currently do not have any plans to screen this film on its release.” NewsCord then treated that reply as evidence the chain would not show the title, and the U.K. press picked up that interpretation. That distinction is the crux of the story: “no current plans” is not the same as a booking commitment, but it is enough for campaigners to claim momentum.
That is why reports that NewsCord had already won a major victory were off the mark. The reply did not say the film had been pulled; it said the chain had no plans to screen it on release. For cinema operators, that leaves room to keep watching the release window while the campaign tries to turn one email response into an industry-wide position. If you want a useful comparison point for how cinema promotion can be used to steer audience behavior, Tony Bywood launches summer family passport book shows a very different kind of exhibitor outreach.
Ali G since 1998
Ali G first appeared in 1998 as part of Channel 4’s “11 O’Clock Show,” which is why the return of Ali G: Who Iz I? carries more than nostalgia value. The character has been gone from the big screen for more than two decades, and the new trailer has reopened the argument over whether the joke lands as satire or as a cover for racist stereotypes.
Afua Hirsch sharpened that point in a new Substack post, writing, “I just knew he was mocking us.” She also wrote, “Black people don’t dress like that anymore. Even white people imitating Black people don’t talk like that anymore. Sexualizing black women and casually mocking working class women is not accepted anymore,” before adding, “Baron Cohen’s so-called ‘humor’ is a crude compound of all these things.” That framing gives the boycott campaign its sharper edge: this is not just a trailer backlash, but a fight over who gets to decide what belongs on cinema screens.
For now, the release date is still Oct. 23, and the practical next step is whether any cinema chain follows Picturehouse Cinemas’ lead and stays out of the film entirely. If that happens, NewsCord will have turned a 36,000-email campaign into a booking problem; if it does not, the film still opens with a boycott argument attached to it from day one.
