Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
November 18, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Matthew Huntley: I'm torn by this result and I'll tell you why. On the one hand, Dumb and Dumber To helped reinvigorate the box office and gave the marketplace even more breadth. Hollywood is healthy right now and I'm optimistic it will keep on growing from now until the end of the year. On the other, Dumb and Dumber To sucked and, to be quite frank, it's not worthy of these numbers in my opinion. I fear people will now be tempted to see it, give it even more money, and we'll have another lousy follow-up in the future, or one like it from another franchise. To me, this movie exemplifies lazy filmmaking and over-reliance on the original. Good numbers; bad movie.
Jason Barney: With respect to the film and its success, I was in the camp that was rolling its eyes when some projections showed an opening weekend below $20 million. Our own Reagen Sulewski projected a dismal $16 million. While I understand the cynicism about the project, it went against a developing calendar-related wave. For the last couple of years, just like the summer months, the holiday season is a very lucrative time of year for studios. Perhaps it’s the colder temperatures, but people just want to get out and be entertained as the days get shorter. Maybe it is a cultural phenomenon. The movie industry has certainly identified it. I believe Dumb and Dumber To actually benefited from a sweet spot in the schedule. Two legit blockbusters last week have people talking, and there is A LOT of energy leading up to next weekend with the arrival of the latest Hunger Games entry. It is a good time to in the film industry.
The budget came in somewhere between $35 and $40 million, and with an opening weekend that basically repays the investment, Universal can sit back and relax. Even if this film isn’t that good (the Flixster score is declining and the RT score is pretty bad at 27%), it doesn’t matter. This is the type of option that will hang around for some laughs during the Thanksgiving weekend and throughout the Holidays. It is going to make a good amount of money. When the serious side of life seemingly is so dismal, like elections that don’t matter, ongoing wars and conflicts overseas, stuff like Ebola…audiences are willing to just be taken away by a film like Dumb and Dumber To.
Edwin Davies: This is more than I expected, but only by about $5 million or so. Nostalgia can be a very powerful thing, and the original Dumb and Dumber is pretty much the textbook example of a nostalgic work. It's indelibly tied to the era in which it was made and has built a pretty sizable following through being a staple of home video and cable, and through being known as one of the films that made Jim Carrey one of the biggest movie stars of the 1990s. While the very idea of making a sequel seemed like a very calculating and cynical move from everyone involved (except possibly Jeff Daniels, who probably just felt like it'd be a laugh), it tapped into a rich vein of goodwill left largely untapped for 20 years (if you discount When Harry Met Lloyd, which we all should). Clearly people were more than willing to spend a bit more time with those idiots, and the ads suggested that there would be enough jokes to make the return worthwhile. The reviews tell another story, but the film has already achieved what it needs to in order to see a profit. That's got to be counted as a win for Jim Carrey and the Farelly Brothers, though perhaps not for the audience.
Kim Hollis: This was about what I expected. We had a premiere for the film here a few weeks ago with Jeff Daniels attending and there seemed to be some excitement around it that I wasn't anticipating. With 20 years gone by, you had a good chance at reaching both the people who loved the first film originally and the generation following that had discovered it on video.
David Mumpower: What I find interesting is the manner in which Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd bombed. The fauxquel without Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey grossed only $26.2 million during its domestic run. Meanwhile, Carrey's career has been an unmitigated disaster over the past five years. So, people didn't like a second attempt at the concept and they didn't like Carrey, either. Then, nostalgia somehow kicked in, allowing Dumb and Dumber To to earn more on opening weekend than the fauxquel managed during its entire run. I think this is one of the most fascinating results of 2014 in that it seems to support the idea that if the trailer is funny, consumers provide absolution about everything else.
Kim Hollis: Do you think that Dumb and Dumber To will serve as the beginning of a comeback for Jim Carrey, who has been struggling for relevance in recent years? Or is this just an anomaly brought about by people who are nostalgic for Harry and Lloyd?
Matthew Huntley: I'm leaning toward the latter, at least as far as Jim Carrey's box office clout is concerned. I still think he still has a long career ahead of him, because he's definitely talented, but I don't think he'll consistently fill theaters like he once did. I think this is a combination of too many recent misses (Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone) and that his novelty, which started with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and ended with Bruce Almighty, has now worn off. It seems this is inevitable for any box office draw, including now-former Titans like Tom Cruise, Will Smith and Adam Sandler.
Jason Barney: I don’t mean to take anything away from Jim Carey, Jeff Daniels, or Universal but they were extremely lucky this weekend. A lot of factors came into play. My analysis accepts that this could have been a bad miss, but the result has turned into something much different. There probably was some nostalgia. Jim Carrey was a very significant part of comedy during the 1990s and for the last 10 years has been struggling with his prior success. He is getting work, but his role in Kick-Ass 2 was a little different than the zany and energetic actor we all remember. Even some of his recent comedic projects like Mr. Popper’s Penguins (which I liked) have been more reserved. For Carrey, Dumb and Dumber To is definitely an indication his is still significant, he just needs to pick his spots.
Edwin Davies: I'd be very surprised if this marks a comeback for Jim Carrey unless he starts bringing all the old favorites back as well. (Ace Ventura 3! The Mask 2! Truman's Other Show!) The last decade has been something of a difficult transition for him; he tried to take on more dramatic roles (and hit it out of the park with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is still his best work) and tried to evolve beyond his manic persona, but the audience by and large wasn't willing to follow him. Dumb and Dumber To seems to be an acceptance of that reality, but it's really just a more successful version of something like Yes Man, which was a pretty deliberate attempt to recapture the feel of his '90s heyday. I'm sure Carrey will do good work in the future and that he'll have more hits, but this feels like a last hurrah for a persona that he had tried very hard to move away from.
Kim Hollis: I'd agree with Edwin that it seemed as though Carrey had been trying to pull away from his Ace Ventura/Dumb and Dumber roots. He had been taking more serious (and probably more rewarding roles) and even if he wasn't the go-to guy for comedy anymore, he was respected both as a comedian and an actor. He's had several misses to be sure, but people don't rail against him the way they do some other actors who seem to have fallen from wide public approval. I don't necessarily see this as a comeback vehicle for him. I actually think he'd be better off with a small but critically beloved film as the means to spur that on.
David Mumpower: To me, Jim Carrey is the arrogant jerk who always wants more than he deserves. His constant pandering to get an Oscar nomination is a great example of how he can't be happy with being more successful than almost every other comedic actor in the world. Ethically, I actually agree with him about his Kick-Ass 2 stance. Still, he didn't give back the money, which means he wasn't that torn up about the situation. Even though I have been laughing at his jokes going all the way back to In Living Color, I don't like him as a person. I believe that is the consensus opinion, too. In the social media, that sort of constant popularity contest problem matters.