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After Man On The Moon, Carrey
returns to comedy with ...Irene
Bombarded
with two weeks of heavy action flicks, moviegoers in the US got a break
as Jim Carrey returned to comedic form in Me, Myself & Irene, which
opened at number one two weeks back.
...Irene comes from Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the brotherly team
who wrote and directed 1998’s summer hit There’s Something About
Mary, so audiences should expect the same sort of gross-out humour as
in Mary.
Unlike recent comedies that are filled with jokes about bodily functions
— the most memorable gross-out scene in ...Mary takes place when
star Cameron Diaz mistakes a bodily fluid for hair gel — the brothers
Farrelly generally layer a good story underneath their often dirty humour.
“I don’t think people use the word ‘mature’ with us
often,” said Bobby. “(But) believe it or not, the first thing
we think about is not the laughs, but the characters,” adds Peter,
“What we want and need for our movies to succeed is for audiences
to care about the characters.”
With Jim Carrey (who built a career using physical humour in films such
as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and the Farrellys’ Dumb And Dumber
before dramatic roles in The Cable Guy and recent flop Man On The Moon)
in the lead, ...Irene looks to be a certain hit at the box-office.
Carrey’s most recent comedy, Liar, Liar raked in over $181 million
at U.S. box-offices, and ...Mary was 1998’s fourth highest grossing
film with about $176 million.
In ...Irene, Carrey portrays a Rhode Island state trooper Charlie Baileygates,
who is the nicest guy around. So nice, in fact, that his beautiful wife
leaves him for another man, an African American limousine driver only
about three feet tall. She also leaves Charlie with three sons fathered
by the limo driver, who grow to be big, black, highly-intelligent men
as opposed to Charlie’s thin, white, simple-minded character. When
Charlie can no longer stand the humiliation from family, co-workers and
strangers — including a girl jumping rope — and when he runs
out of medication, he assumes an alter-ego, Hank, who is as mean as Charlie
is kind. Problems arise when Charlie is assigned to escort female fugitive
Irene Waters, portrayed by Renee Zellweger, and both Charlie and Hank
fall in love with her.
Working on the film, incidentally, sparked the real-life and ongoing romance
between Carrey and Zellweger.
Has
Carrey’s comic image taken a beating?
Is America’s love affair with Jim Carrey over and done with? Or,
does Carrey need to stay out of R-rated movies and avoid playing deranged
characters, if he wants to continue his slapstick reign? Me, Myself &
Irene opened at No. 1, pulling in an estimated $24.2 million. That’s
not a poor showing, but it’s not in the same box-office league as
some of Carrey’s biggest hits. Consider the following: Batman Forever
(wherein Carrey co-starred as the Riddler) raked in $52.7 million during
its opening weekend in 1995; Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls posted $37.8
million (also in 1995); and even Carrey’s first real dramatic film,
The Truman Show, posted $31.5 million in its first weekend two years ago.
Carrey’s biggest success as a solo star came in Liar, Liar which
opened with a $31.4 million imitial in 1997, and eventually grossed $181.4
million.
The figures for ...Irene aren’t anywhere near as disappointing as
those for Carrey’s turn as Andy Kaufman in Man On The Moon ($7.5
million opening weekend, $34.6 million total), but they’re reminiscent
of The Cable Guy (1996), which opened with $19.8 million, and eventually
raked in a modest (by Jim Carrey standards) $60.2 million. So, ...Irene
is Carrey’s fifth-biggest opening weekend at the box-office.
What does this convey? According to a trade analyst, the film’s R-rating
may have cut into the potential sales. “Carrey comedies traditionally
do well with young teens,” he says.
The trade analyst notes that R-rated comedies usually don’t open
huge. Prior to ...Irene, the largest largest openings for R-rated comedies
in recent years had been $20.4 million for the Eddie Murphy-Martin Lawrence
flick Life, and $18.7 million for American Pie. On the other hand, ...Irene
posted the biggest opening ever for a Farrelly Brothers comedy. Previously,
their biggest debut was with 1994’s Dumb And Dumber at $16.3 million.
So, their gross-out style of humour (there was the semen joke in There’s
Something About Mary, and ...Irene features a poop joke) is apparently
on the upswing.
An analyst of Boxofficemojo.com points that ...Irene is only slightly
underperforming. Carrey’s average opening weekend, when you consider
the bomb that was Man On The Moon, is $25.8 million. “(Carrey) is
one of the few, true box-office draws around, and this is exactly the
kind of film that even made him the most bankable star at one point,”
concludes the analyst.
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