Box Office Results: The Dumbest Comedy Sequel Ever Wins the Weekend

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films and then check back on Monday for the final figures based on actual box office.

As the holiday movie season picks up steam from the slower fall months, we went from a weekend with two movies grossing $100 million between them to one where three movies made that amount (and next weekend, one movie should be able to do well above that amount on its own.)

With the movie theater business booming, last week’s big budget blockbusters were transplanted by a comedy sequel twenty years in the making as the Farrelly Brothers reunited Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels for Dumb and Dumber To, which burst into 3,154 theaters with an estimated $38 million. That’s Jim Carrey’s biggest opening weekend since 2003’s Bruce Almighty, which opened with $68 million over Memorial Day, and it’s the Farrelly Brothers’ biggest opening ever, grossing more in its first three days than a few of their recent movies have grossed in total.

The film’s low “B-” CinemaScore doesn’t bode well for the comedy’s long-term prospects although it shouldn’t have a problem hitting $100 million with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up (when it will face another sequel to a more recent comedy hit). According to exit polls, 55% of the audience was male with 57% of the audience over the age of 25.

Both of last week’s new releases held up well in their second weekend with Walt Disney Studios Animation’s Big Hero 6 taking second place with $36 million, down just 36%, and Christopher Nolan’s outer space epic Interstellar (Paramount), taking third place with $29.2 million, down 39%. Reportedly produced for the same $165 million budget, Big Hero 6 remains ahead in making that money back domestically with $111.6 million to date, compared to Interstellar‘s $97.8 million. IMAX is still contributing greatly to Interstellar‘s success with more than $7.4 million of its weekend take grossed from 368 IMAX iterations.

Gina Prince-Blythewood’s music biz romance Beyond the Lights, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Nate Parker, opened softly with $6.5 million in 1,789 theaters to take fourth place with an average of $3,633. That’s a weaker opening than both of Prince-Blythewood’s previous films, 2008’s adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees and 2000’s Love & Basketball.

David Fincher and Gillian Flynn’s adaptation of the latter’s bestselling thriller Gone Girl (20th Century Fox), starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, continues to be one of the unstoppable hits of the fall movie season, as it remained in the Top 5 for its seventh consecutive weekend with $4.6 million, having grossed $152.7 million during that time domestically.

Another surprising fall sleeper is Ted Melfi’s comedy St. Vincent (The Weinstein Co.), starring Bill Murray and Melissa McCarthy, which maintained sixth place with $4 million, also down just 25% as it brought its domestic gross to $33.3 million.

Brad Pitt’s WWII epic Fury dropped to seventh place with $3.8 million and $75.9 million grossed domestically so far.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s thriller Nightcrawler (Open Road) took eighth place with $3 million, putting it $13,000 ahead of Universal’s low-budget Ouija, which has grossed $48 million based on a budget of $5 million.

Alejandro Inarritu’s Birman finally moved into the Top 10 as it expanded nationwide into 857 theaters and got a slight bump to $2.4 million with $11.6 million grossed its first month in release.

The Top 10 grossed an estimated $130.7 million, up roughly $15 million from this weekend last year when Universal opened another long-time-coming comedy sequel The Best Man Holiday in 2,024 theaters where it scored $30.1 million, not enough to best Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World in its second weekend.

Jon Stewart’s directorial debut Rosewater, starring Gael Garcia Bernal as imprisoned Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari, opened on Friday in 371 theaters where it scored $1.2 million, putting it just outside the Top 12 at #13.

In limited release, Moneyball director Bennett Miller’s latest drama Foxcatcher (Sony Pictures Classics), starring Channing Tatum, Steve Carell and Mark Ruffalo, did decently with $288,000 in 6 theaters in New York and L.A.

Tommy Lee Jones’ Western The Homesman (Roadside Attractions), starring fellow Oscar winners Hilary Swank and Meryl Streep, opened weaker with just $48,000 in four theaters in New York and L.A.

Click here for the full box office estimates of the top 12 films.