Box Office: Stupidity Wins Out As Dumb & Dumber To Narrowly Takes #1 With $38 Million

Box Office, News, Top Story

That’s right. A sequel to a twenty-year-old movie was number one at the box office. Dumb & Dumber To opened higher to original estimates (which was in the vicinity of $25 million). Frankly, I thought the comedy was awful, and Scott Sawitz’s review for Inside Pulse Movies backs up my claim. So what does this mean now? Will Peter and Bobby Farrelly give us Hall Pass 2, or a sequel to Osmosis Jones? Will Paramount decide to finally give Ben Stiller his wish to do Zoolander 2: Electric Boogaloo? The possibilities are endless. On second thought, let’s see how well it performs against The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I. If it doesn’t drop too much and has legs, then I guess Zoolander 2 has a one in a million shot of getting greenlit. So you’re telling me there’s a chance? That’s right, Ben. Now hit the readers with some Blue Steel.

Disney’s Big Hero 6 again performed strong, falling only 35.9% and earning an impressive $36M second-weekend gross. What’s taking the studio so long in announcing a sequel. It didn’t even take The Purge this long to announce a sequel would be arriving the following year. With the health care provider/superhero dropping from first to second, it meant that Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar had to settle for bronze instead of a silver. It may not be firing on all cylinders like the director’s Inception or The Dark Knight, but overseas it is killing it ($97.8M in U.S., $224M in foreign totals). That’s $321 million in two weeks, people!

The other major new release in theaters this weekend was Relativity’s Beyond the Lights, a sort-of modernized spin on The Bodyguard. Reviews for the film were sparse due to the number of critics who had access to see it, but they were glowing nonetheless. Not the best approach if you want to build strong word of mouth between readers and viewers alike. On 1789 screens, the movie only made $6.5 million in its opening weekend, which is unfortunate considering it appears to be good critically and has a pair of underrated actors in Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Nate Parker. 20th Century Fox’s Gone Girl is still in the top five after seven weeks and continues to hold strong as its audience decrease dwindles nominally. Given a few more weeks it will become David Fincher’s biggest hit worldwide.

The rest of the top 10 also held up well. St. Vincent, Fury, Nightcrawler and Ouija all fell less than 50%. Weinstein Co.’s St. Vincent has quietly made $33 million and should continue to see life at the box office as awards season intensifies. In limited release, Birdman finally cracked the top 10 with $2.4 million. Playing on 857 screens its earning percentage increased by six percent. Not bad for a movie that has made $11M despite playing on less than 1000 screens.

But the big story in limited release was the performance of Sony Pictures Classics Foxcatcher. It grossed $288,113 from six screens for an excellent $48k per screen average. Jon Stewart’s Rosewater opened to $1.2 million, which is okay. Focus Features’ The Theory of Everything in its second weekend added 36 screens and grossed $738,000.

The weekend upcoming is all about The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I. The first Movie opened with $152M. Catching Fire was $158M. Can Mockingjay crack $160M? We shall see.


01. Dumb and Dumber To — $38,053,000
02. Big Hero 6 — $36,010,000 ($111.6M)
03. Interstellar — $29,190,000 ($97.8M)
04. Beyond The Lights — $6,500,000
05. Gone Girl — $4,625,000 ($152M)
06. St. Vincent — $4,025,000 ($33.2M)
07. Fury — $3,810,000 ($68.5M)
08. Nightcrawler — $3,038,000 ($25M)
09. Ouija — $3,025,000 ($48.1M)
10. Birdman — $2,450,000 ($11.5M)

Travis Leamons is one of the Inside Pulse Originals and currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Inside Pulse Movies. He's told that the position is his until he's dead or if "The Boss" can find somebody better. I expect the best and I give the best. Here's the beer. Here's the entertainment. Now have fun. That's an order!