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The Dumb and Dumber To trailer blew the doors off the competition in its first week. The debut coming attraction for the Jim Carrey-Jeff Daniels sequel scored 23.5 million views on YouTube, according to technology company Zefr, which tracks the results.
How easily did Dumb and Dumber To, which opens in theaters Nov. 14, win the week? The next nine trailers recorded a combined 15 million views.
The first trailer for the sequel to the 1994 hit that grossed $247 million worldwide delivers everything that fans of the original presumably want. In just two minutes and 30 seconds, there is a catheter joke, a butt joke, an old-people sex joke and one very funny blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sight gag involving a vending machine. The plot — a lost daughter, a crush and two friends on a road trip — feels secondary to the jokes, the lower-brow the better.
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Eight of the nine trailers in the top 10 were making their debut this week. In the No. 2 spot was The Interview with 3.4 million views. The trailer for the Seth Rogen-James Franco vehicle disappoints. The plot is clear enough — two goofy friends (a talk-show host and his producer) — play spy on a mission to North Korea to kill leader Kim Jong-un. But the jokes fall flat. Aside from one funny (but tired) instance of bathroom humor, the preview offers few laugh-out-loud lines. The trailer makes it seem like the spy movie version of the pair’s 2013 spoof of disaster movies, This Is the End — but less funny. The movie, which also stars Lizzy Caplan and Ray Park (as Kim), opens Oct. 10.
The teaser trailer for Birdman followed at No. 3 with 2 million views. This trailer is mysterious. It is heavy on atmospherics and interesting cinematography but light on plot. What can be gleaned from it is that Michael Keaton (riffing on his own Batman past) plays an aging actor trying to move beyond his most famous role, the superhero Birdman. “How did we end up here, in this dump,” Keaton says in a voiceover. “You were a movie star, remember?”
Parts of the trailer for the film, directed by Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu with cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki (known as Chivo), suggest a fantasy and other parts suggest a straight drama. The teaser teases well (what it’s supposed to do), suggesting lots of potential but not offering enough to render a full judgment. The movie, which also stars Ed Norton, Emma Stone and Zach Galifianakis, arrives in theaters Oct. 17.
The third preview for Sin City landed at No. 5 with 1.6 million views.
Two Boxtrolls trailers — the international and the domestic — held the No. 6 and No. 7 spots with 1.65 and 1.63 million views, respectively. This stop-motion/CGI hybrid about a bunch of underground trash-collecting creatures and the young boy they adopt looks super fun and likely will appeal to its target children’s demo. The trailer displays great animation, heartfelt emotion (between the boy and the young girl who finds him and introduces him to the surface world) and an infectious rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack. The movie, which is based on the novel Here Be Monsters! and stars the voices of Ben Kingsley, Elle Fanning, Toni Collette and Jared Harris, opens Sept. 26.
Rounding out the top 10 are No Good Deed at No. 8, The Penguins of Madagascar at No. 9 and Dolphin Tale 2 at No. 10.
The only holdover trailer was The Giver at No. 4, rising from No. 16 last week.
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