The Farrelly Brothers’ PG-13 comedy sequel Dumb and Dumber To, which stars Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, outperformed expectations and topped the weekend box office with an estimated $38.1 million debut. Disney’s Big Hero 6 and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar both posted strong holds. The top three films deserve the majority of the credit for a solid 13.2% increase in box office revenue versus the same weekend last year when Thor: The Dark World maintained its #1 spot with a $36.6 million hold in its second frame.Dumb and Dumber To opened almost exactly 20 years after the lamppost-licking original, which debuted with $16.3 million back in 1994. Adjusting the original film’s total for inflation would yield about a $31 million bow, so Dumber and Dumber To’s debut has to rate as a success from any perspective, especially since analysts were predicting a $25 million opening for the long-gestating sequel that was put into "turnaround" ("Hollywood-ese" for "torpedoed") by Warner Bros., only to be resurrected by Red Granite Pictures.
Universal mounted a surprisingly wide-bore TV marketing campaign for Dumb and Dumber To, which attracted a healthy number (43%) of under-25 viewers for such a "vintage" property. With its "PG-13" rating and a sort of "safe choice, known quantity" quality about it, Dumb and Dumber To should be able to maintain some momentum in theaters at least through the Thanksgiving holidays in spite of withering attacks from reviewers resulting in a 27% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a poor "B-" CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences, which were 55% male, 44% Caucasian, 38% Hispanic, 8% African-American, and 4% Asian.
Dumb and Dumber To won’t face much in the way of new comedy movie competition until the "R-rated" Horrible Bosses sequel drops on November 26th, so it is hard to see how this film, which cost less than $40 million to produce, won’t be profitable.
Disney’s Big Hero 6, which is loosely-based on a Marvel comic book, dropped just 36% from its strong opening weekend as it added $36 million, bringing its domestic total to $111.7 million after 10 days. The film’s solid $9,544 per venue weekend average was bolstered by strong matinee showings (the film’s Saturday total was nearly double its Friday take). The $165 million film’s financial fate will be decided overseas where it has made just $36 million in limited release so far.
Christopher Nolan’s serious science fiction film Interstellar also posted a strong hold, dropping just 38.6% in its second frame as it earned an estimated $29.2 million and brought its domestic total to $97.8 million. Interstellar also cost $165 million to produce, but in spite of just an "OK" domestic showing, the film is already a hit thanks to its strong performance overseas where it has earned $224.1 million.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): November 14-16, 2014 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | Dumb and Dumber To | $38,053,000 | 3,154 | $12,065 | $38,053,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Big Hero 6 | $36,010,000 | 3,773 | $9,544 | $111,653,000 | 2 |
| 3 | Interstellar | $29,190,000 | 3,561 | $8,197 | $97,810,000 | 2 |
| 4 | Beyond the Lights | $6,500,000 | 1,789 | $3,633 | $6,500,000 | 1 |
| 5 | Gone Girl | $4,625,000 | 1,959 | $2,361 | $152,699,000 | 7 |
| 6 | St. Vincent | $4,025,000 | 2,332 | $1,726 | $33,258,000 | 6 |
| 7 | Fury | $3,810,000 | 2,382 | $1,599 | $75,941,000 | 5 |
| 8 | Nightcrawler | $3,038,000 | 2,103 | $1,445 | $25,000,000 | 3 |
| 9 | Ouija | $3,025,000 | 2,382 | $1,270 | $48,105,000 | 4 |
| 10 | Birdman | $2,450,000 | 857 | $2,859 | $11,575,000 | 5 |
Fourth place went to director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights, a romantic drama targeting the African-American audience from the helmer of Love and Bastketball and The Secret Life of Bees. Look for Beyond the Lights, a saga of a Rihanna-like songstress, to hang around for some time, in spite of its modest $6.5 million bow, thanks to a solid "A" CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences.
The fall hit Gone Girl slipped to #5 in its seventh weekend as it slipped just 25.5% and added $4.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $152.7 million. The only question is how many more weeks will this neo-noir thriller stay in the top ten?
The rest of the top ten also suffered small drops led by the character comedy St. Vincent, which stars Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy and shows every sign of being this season’s sleeper comedy hit.
Tis the season for art movies. Alejandro Inarritu’s Birdman starring Michael Keaton has been building slowly, adding 397 theaters this week and finally breaking into the top ten as it earned $2.5 million from 857 theaters. Opening in limited release was John Stewart’s directorial debut, the political drama Rosewater, which debuted in 371 theaters and earned $1.2 million. In an even more limited debuts, the Steve Carrell-starring drama about a demented patron of the U.S. Olympic Wrestling team, Foxcatcher earned $288,000 from just six theaters, and the Tommy Lee Jones-helmed western drama The Homesman, which stars Hilary Swank, earned $48,000 from just 4 venues.
Check back here next weekend. The winner of next weekend’s box office derby has already been determined, it will be The Hunger Games: Mockinjay Part I, which has such franchise-derived box office power, that no studio wants to release a film on the same weekend that Mockingjay drops. The only questions are how big will the opening be--and what will be leftover for the holdover films.
--Tom Flinn
