"Dumb and Dumber To" tops North American box office

"Dumb and Dumber To" replaced Disney's animated film "Big Hero 6" to top the North American box office this weekend, with an estimated 38.1 million U.S. dollars in the United States and Canada.

Staring by Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, "Dumb and Dumber To" marks Carrey's biggest live-action opener since 2003's "Bruce Almighty". The film, directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, was Daniels' highest opening ever.

The original "Dumb and Dumber" cost just 16 million dollars to make and grossed 127 million dollars in its 1994-95 release. The film held the top spot at the box office for four weeks.

This is the seventh first place debut for Universal Pictures this year, following "Lone Survivor", "Ride Along", "Non-Stop", "Neighbors", "Lucy" and "Ouija". Fox is the only other studio with seven first place openings in 2014.

"Dumb and Dumber To" earned a B-minus rating from audience polling firm CinemaScore and 27 percent "fresh" rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The audience for it was 55 percent male and 57 percent over the age of 25.

Number two was held down by "Big Hero 6", which is on track for 36 million dollars in ticket sales on its second weekend, for a running total of 111.7 million dollars.

Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" took in 29.2 million dollars and the third place, for 98 million dollars total since it opened on Nov. 4.

The Top 12 earned an estimated 134.6 million dollars this weekend, which is up 13 percent from the same weekend last year.

Rounding out the rest seven of top 10 movies this weekend, as estimated by the studios and collated by Rentrak, were "Beyond The Light" (6.5 million dollars), "Gone Girl" (4.6 million), "St. Vincent" (4 million), "Fury" (3.8 million), "Nightcrawler" (3 million), "Ouija" (3 million) and "Birdman" (2.5 million).