Summary Screwball comedy sequel "Dumb and Dumber To" claimed top spot at the North American box office.
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Screwball comedy sequel "Dumb and Dumber To" confounded scathing reviews to top the North American box office on its debut in theaters this weekend, final figures showed Monday.
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 $36.1 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."
In second place was Disney s animated "Big Hero 6," which follows the adventures of a 14-year-old genius and an inflatable robot called Baymax. The movie earned $34.7 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 $28.3 million on its second weekend in theaters.
Fourth place was occupied by new film "Beyond the Lights," a romantic drama starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as an up-and-coming 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 $6.2 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 $4.6 million.
"St. Vincent," a comedy starring Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy and Naomi Watts, earned $3.77 million for sixth place.
Brad Pitt s World War II tank battalion drama "Fury" was seventh with $3.76 million, ahead of horror movie "Ouija" with $3 million.
"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, slipped to ninth with $2.9 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 $2.5 million.
