Screwball sequel ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ tops box-office
LOS ANGELES: Screwball comedy sequel ‘ Dumb and Dumber To’ confounded scathing reviews to top the North American box office on its debut in theatres this weekend, estimated figures showed Sunday.
A follow-up to 1994’s ‘ Dumb and Dumber’, the sequel sees Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels reprise their roles as dim-witted best friends haplessly attempting to overcome a series of comic obstacles on a farcical odyssey.
The movie, directed by brothers Bobby and Peter Farrelly, pulled in a solid US$38 million in its opening weekend, according to box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
The weekend haul belied reviews which have been broadly merciless, with one critic opining that the film “isn’t just dumb and dumber, or even crude and cruder...it’s just dull -- and duller.”
So far the film has scored a meager 27 per cent on the Rotten Tomatoes film review aggregator website.
In second place was Disney’s animated ‘ Big Hero 6’, which follows the adventures of a 14year-old genius and an inflatable robot called Baymax. The movie earned US$36 million in its second weekend.
Christopher Nolan’s sweeping space epic ‘ Interstellar’, starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway as astronauts embarking on a quest to find a new habitat for humanity, was third. The film took US$29.2 million on its second weekend in theatres.
Fourth place was occupied by new film ‘ Beyond the Lights’, a romantic drama starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as an up-andcoming pop star who falls in love with a police officer played by Nate Parker after she attempts suicide.
The drama, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, took US$6.5 million in its opening weekend.
Fifth place went to ‘ Gone Girl’, David Fincher’s thriller starring Ben Affleck as a husband suspected of murdering his wife. The movie, based on Gillian Flynn’s best-selling 2012 novel, took US$4.6 million.
‘ St. Vincent’, a comedy starring Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts, earned US$4 million for sixth place.
Brad Pitt’s World War II tank battalion drama ‘ Fury’ was seventh with US$3.8 million, just ahead of ‘ Nightcrawler’, the Los Angeles thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as an unscrupulous video journalist who makes a living by serving up gory footage of crime scenes to local television stations. The film took US$3.03 million.
Ninth place was taken by horror movie ‘ Ouija’, with US$3.02 million.
Rounding out the top 10 was ‘ Birdman’, the comedy drama starring Michael Keaton as a washed up Hollywood superhero movie star attempting to resurrect his career on Broadway. The film by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu took US$2.4 million. — AFP