Carrey's Glow Fades As 'Irene' Tops Box Office
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Only a Jim Carrey film could open at No. 1 with a $24.1 milliongross from North American movie theaters and still be considered a bit disappointing.
But that's the fate that seems to have befallen ``Me, Myself & Irene'' (Fox) this weekend, the
Canadian comic's ``dream team'' reunion with Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the writer/directors of his
1994 opus ``Dumb and Dumber.''
Scathing reviews, a restricting R rating and lukewarm word- of-mouth produced a three-day sum just as mild as the Rhode
Island state trooper he plays in the film, according to studio estimates issued Sunday. Six other films have opened this year
with higher totals.
On the other hand, the acclaimed clay-animated comedy ''Chicken Run'' opened at No. 2 with a finger-lickin' $17.5 million,
an unofficial record for a DreamWorks animated film. Last weekend's No. 1, the crime drama ``Shaft,'' slipped to No. 3 with
$13.3 million.
``Irene'' stars Carrey as a cop afflicted with split personalities (meek and mild vs. brazenly boorish) that battle each other for
the affections of a character played by Renee Zellweger.
Critics, never big Carrey fans to begin with, lambasted the film's potty humor. Audience
polling on Friday night revealed that only about 60 percent of viewers would recommend the
film, said Tom Sherak, chairman of domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox.
Film Expectations
The record for a Carrey headliner is the $37.8 million his ''Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls'' opened with in November
1995, followed by $31.5 million for ``The Truman Show'' in June 1998. At least ``Irene'' did better than his last movie, his
dramatic foray ``Man on the Moon,'' which opened to $7.5 million last December.
The ``Irene'' opening was in line with expectations, Sherak said. But he noted that the R rating immediately rules out the
youthful demographic most likely to be enthralled by Carrey's cartoonish pranks. Such fans often get around that hurdle by
buying tickets for another movie and then sneaking into the restricted screening.
The Farrelly brothers were last in theaters with 1998's ''There's Something About Mary.'' That film opened at No. 4 with
$13.7 million, reached No. 1 in its eighth weekend and ended up with $176 million domestically. ``Dumb and Dumber''
opened at No. 1 with $16.4 million and ended up with $127 million.
Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment Group Inc., which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News
Corp. .
If estimates hold when final data are issued Monday,''Chicken Run'' will surpass ``Antz'' as the best cartoon opening in
DreamWorks' history, said the privately held studio's distribution president, Jim Tharp. The latter opened with $17.2 million in
October 1998.
Fly The Coop
From writer/directors Peter Lord and Nick Park, the British duo behind the Oscar-winning ``Wallace and Gromit'' series,
''Chicken Run'' revolves around the efforts of farm chickens to fly the coop in order to avoid being turned into pies. Voices
are provided by the likes of Mel Gibson and English actresses Julia Sawalha and Jane Horrocks.
Tharp said the studio had forecast a $10 million-$12 million going into the weekend. Polling indicated that 85 percent of
viewers would recommend the film, he added.
According to Exhibitor Relations Co., which collects the studios' estimates, the top 12 films this weekend grossed $101.4
million, up 3.5 percent from last weekend, but down 20 percent from the year-ago weekend, when Adam Sandler's ``Big
Daddy'' opened at No. 1 with $41.5 million. New releases next July 4 holiday weekend include Gibson's ``The Patriot''
George Clooney's ``The Perfect Storm'' and the live action/animated ''The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle''
After 10 days in release, director John Singleton's ''Shaft'' remake has grossed $42.9 million for Viacom Inc.'s Paramount
Pictures. The Samuel L. Jackson starrer lost just 39 percent of its audience from last weekend.
Fox's animated space adventure ``Titan A.E.,'' which also opened last weekend, fell three places to No. 8 with $3.7 million,
losing 61 percent of its audience -- the heaviest erosion in the top 10. Its 10-day haul stands at $16.9 million.
Rounding out the top five were Walt Disney Co.'s ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' at No. 4 with $9.5 million (17-day total $68.9
million); and Fox's ``Big Momma's House'' at No. 5 with $8.7 million (14-day total $85.4 million).
tried to act. The kiss of death was when people thought he would get an
Oscar nomination for TS. That's funny. MTV and the Golden Globes
will be his for life. Truman did not do it, so he auditioned hard for the
Andy Kaufman life story, 'Man on the Moon." This was supposed to show
that Carrey could act and be a nut case at the same time. Kaufman was very
similar to Carrey except AK was so weird that most people did not understand him
unless he was speaking broken English on "Taxi." MOTM was a good
film, but after you see it you still don't understand why anyone would care
about this young comic who never really was able to make a name for
himself. MOTM was Carrey's second biggest bomb since he became world
famous with Ace Ventura. His least successful movie in the last 6 years
was Simon Birch in which he just cameoed. Cable Guy was his biggest high
profile failure, even though that movie made about $70 million or so. If
you ask most Carrey fans which is their favorite Jim Carrey movie, most will
probably say "Dumb and Dumber" which is also my personal fav. It
is absolutely the stupidest movie ever made, but if you want to laugh 
out
loud, D&D is the movie to see. It was made by Peter and Bob Farrelly
and it was also the movie that Carrey met his ex wife, Lauren Holly.
Carrey needed a big hit, and the Farrelly's had one recently with "There's
Something About Mary" which even made the list of the top 100 comedies of
all time. Putting Carrey and the Farrelly's back together again seemed
like instant magic and success. In fact, Carrey's current main squeeze,
the annoying looking Rene Zelwegger costars with him in MMAI. Carrey plays
a guy with multiple (dual) personalities. One is a mousy guy who gets
goofed on by rope skipping little girls, and the other curses out little boys
who throw spitballs. Both personalities are after the ex con, Rene
Z. This gives Carrey several excuses to go nuts like eating bugs, sticking
his fingers up a dying cow's nostrils, and to make different facial expressions
when he changes identities. However, the opening week grosses of
"Irene" was a little lackluster since Carrey makes so much money and
should be able to open a film like this with at least $30 to $35 million.
It's all about the preview. It has some funny moments like the cotton
mouth and the midget with the billy club, but it also risks showing the funniest
parts of the movie. The dual personality plot is a little too blatant for
people to think they are getting anything new from Carrey and may be a little
too boring to think people will get the same stuff they loved in the past.
Also, Carrey is getting replaced by Adam Sandler as the guy worth his salary in
opening a movie. Sandler is doing the type of movies Carrey used to
do. Irene should do okay though, but it will struggle to make a $100
million. Carrey has potential to return to the mega bucks opening this
November when "The Grinch" shows up. Carrey is completely
covered in green hairy makeup to play the classic holiday villain originally
voiced by Boris Karloff. That looks to be huge. Jim Carrey is very
funny and should continue to stretch his talents. Maybe he should do a
movie with Adam Sandler and Robin Williams. That would be some flick. 
than Titan A.E.'s more aggressive visuals. The makers of this movie made
something called Wallace and Gromit which popularized this wacky style of
British clay animation with those weird teeth. You see this style in car
commercials and this one documentary where they animated animals at a zoo but
the voices were actual interviews of poor people complaining about their lives
lack poor food and living space. I like clay animation, but it creeps me
out a bit, especially teeth and lips on chickens. This movie had good
promotion and for a movie that not a lot of people knew about 3 months ago, this
opening should make the producers very happy. It looked like a good family
movie with enough of an edge to keep the adults interested and it is rated
G. The government complains about not enough children or family movies
since Hollywood keeps making extreme films that appeal more to kids than adults
but may be too risque. Finally, a G movie that is not Disney makes a
profit. Chicken Run has made more money this weekend than Titan A.E. has
made in its entire run so far which is quite interesting. Kids are always
complaining that films geared toward them are lame because they treat the
audience like babies and they are boring. They always talk about wanting
to see something crazy, violent, sexy, or just plain loud. Titan seemed to
be the perfect movie for older kids like 8 to 12 who are looking for a good
cartoon with an edge. It is not attracting kids of any age. Chicken
Run has that subtle edge that is more fun to look at than the confusing computer
generated effects of the Don Bluth cartoon. Chicken Run has a
simpler story which also helps in attracting larger audiences. The fate of
the planet is not the issue this time, just whether people will ever get fed
again if the chickens do escape.