Box Office Weekend: America Loves Dumb

Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels returned to the big screen 20 years later with Dumb and Dumber To, to most critics’ chagrin. Still, for such a late-coming sequel, it did remarkably well, its estimated opening of $38.1 million more than doubled the original film’s opening weekend (whether it comes close to topping Dumb and Dumber’s $127.2 million domestic gross, though, is the real test). It held tight over big draws Big Hero 6 (estimated $36 million) and Interstellar (estimated $29.2 million), both of which have done well both here and abroad (though Interstellar has done much better worldwide, grossing over $329.1 million in all).

While nothing else on the board picked up over $10 million, critics and audiences were very happy with Beyond the Lights. The romantic drama only made an estimated $6.5 million in its debut, however, and is currently the lowest earning film in the top ten; it cannot hold a candle to Gone Girl in overall take, an estimated $4.6 million adding even more to a rousing $152.7 million domestic total. St. Vincent and its estimated $4 million, on the other hand, has led to a domestic total of $33.3 million that may or may not be decent for another Weinstein Company production; whether its unreported budget has been bested or not, it is the independent company’s third highest grossing domestic film that played through 2014 as of this date.

Speaking of successes, Fury managed to battle its way against the odds to profitability with an estimated $3.8 million helping push things along, while Nightcrawler (estimated $3 million) made a smash upon the revelation of its very low budget, making $25 million from an $8.5 million investment. So too did Ouija, its estimated $3 million almost enough to cover its costs on its own, let alone the $48.1 million its made in the meantime. At the bottom, Birdman, after spending five weeks in limited release and struggling to make the top ten, finally made it this week. With an estimated $2.5 million, it may take the film a little extra flapping to become profitable, but with rave critical reviews it just might be able to pull it off (plus some help from overseas business).

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Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."

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