NEW YORK, USA (AP) — At the movies, idiocy never goes out of style.

Twenty years after the 1994 original, Dumb and Dumber To opened with US$38.1 million at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates yesterday. The Universal sequel debuted almost exactly two decades after the Farrelly brothers first introduced the Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels low-IQ duo.

Dumb and Dumber To edged out the animated Disney adventure Big Hero 6, which took in US$36 million in its second week. Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar slid to third in its second week with an estimated US$29.2 million. The film continues to blast off overseas, where it took in US$106 million over the weekend, with sales particularly boosted by a strong opening in China.

The top three films took up the lion share of the box office, with the no. 4 film, the romance Beyond the Lights, opening with a distant US$6.5 million.

In a Hollywood constantly updating, rebooting and sequalising old properties, Dumb and Dumber To was still unique. In between installments, there was also a 2003 prequel, though it was made with different actors and wasn’t directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly.

“This was a gamble,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak. “Cinematic history is littered with long-lead sequels that just haven’t worked.”

“It’s always a risky move to wait this long, but in this case, the casting of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels really made a difference,” he added.

Patrick Dempsey honoured

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine-born actor Patrick Dempsey returned home to accept an award for his work helping cancer patients.

Dempsey — most famous for his role as Dr. Derek Shepherd in the TV series Grey’s Anatomy — and the Jackson Laboratory were awarded the Maine Creative Industries Award on Saturday in Portland.

Forty-eight-year-old Dempsey was inspired by his mother’s battle with ovarian cancer to help found the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. His mother, Amanda Dempsey, died in March. The Jackson Lab is a genetics research facility in Bar Harbor.

The award is given by the non-profit Maine Center for Creativity, which said both recipients were honored for their “visionary thinking and persistence in helping cancer patients” in the state.

American TV producer Glen A Larson dead

LOS ANGELES, USA (AP) — Glen A Larson, the writer and producer behind well-loved TV series such as the original Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider, Magnum, PI and Quincy, M.E., has died. He was 77.

Larson died at the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center on Friday night of complications from esophageal cancer, his son, James Larson, said in a phone interview Saturday.

Glen Larson, also an accomplished singer and composer, was a powerhouse in the television landscape in the 1970s and 1980s, when he churned out hits that became staples in millions of living rooms every night.

He also co-composed the theme songs for some of his hits, including the frequently sampled tune from Knight Rider and the orchestral music behind Battlestar Galactica, his son said.

“He was sort of an icon,” James Larson said. “There are a lot of interesting things like that.”

Glen Larson was nominated three times for an Emmy, once for a Grammy for the original score of Battlestar Galactica, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1985.