6 Lessons Hollywood Could Learn From the Success of ‘Dumb and Dumber To’
Dumb and Dumber To made an astonishing $38 million this weekend, exceeding even the most optimistic expectations. To be clear, this long-awaited sequel featuring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels and directed by the Farrelly brothers isn’t a great movie — especially when compared to the brilliant 1994 original. But it hardly mattered. There was a huge appetite to see Harry Dunne and Lloyd Christmas reunite for another adventure and audiences were happy to ignore the 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. We didn’t love it, but we eagerly await a third one.
Almost more astounding than the huge box office figures, however, is the fact that it took 10 years for Hollywood to green light the picture. For whatever reason, they weren’t convinced the idea of a sequel would be a surefire hit, despite the fact that Carrey, Daniels and the filmmakers were all ready to move forward. It’s a perfect example of Hollywood’s complete failure to realize what audiences want to see on the big screen. Here are six things the industry should learn from this.
1. Age Doesn’t Matter.
There’s this persistent myth that young people won’t see a movie where the stars are even close to the age of their parents. But according to The Hollywood Reporter, 43% of the audience for Dumb and Dumber To was under 25 — which means that a healthy portion of the audience didn’t see the original when it first came out. They fell in love with the characters later through repeat viewings on DVD and cable. Most of them could not have cared less that Jim Carrey is 52 and Jeff Daniels is 59.
The last movies in the Die Hard and Indiana Jones franchises paired the aging star with a twenty-something; in the case of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Shia LaBeouf’s character didn’t even exist in the original script. But by the time cameras were rolling, Indy’s long-lost son Mutt was by his side through the vast majority of the picture. Nothing was going to save the wretched A Good Day to Die Hard, but that didn’t mean John McClane’s son had to practically be stapled to him through the entire film. Both of these were horrible, horrible decisions. Not a single young person walked out of Crystal Skull and said, “I didn’t care much for that old guy with the whip, but thank God Shia LaBeouf was there to do cool shit like swing from those vines Tarzan-style!” We want the original crew and the original crew only, wrinkles and everything.
2. Enough With the Reboots.
Back in 2003, the good people at New Line gave us Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. They seemed to be under the impression that we didn’t care who portrayed these characters. Throw in some American Pie-like high school hijinks, and the studio brass figured the youth market would be overjoyed. They were wrong. The franchise is rarely more important than the actors. People flocked to the theaters this weekend to see Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. Period.