Dumb and Dumber To Studio Fending Off Two Separate Lawsuits

When Dumb and Dumber To released in 2014, it hardly made much of an impact. Reviews were middling at best, and most people wondered who would actually be interested in a 20-years-later sequel to a dumb, white-guy comedy stuffed with fart jokes. Initially, we would have thought the answer would be, “Nobody but the saddest of ‘90s kids,” but now the answer is, “The original film’s producers and the freaking federal United States government.” That’s right, the film we once described as a “long, downward slide of gags and nut shots” is being sued by two separate parties for perceived offenses and crimes, which would honestly make for a better movie than what we got.

The first lawsuit is brought by Steve Stabler and Brad Krevoy—producers of the first Dumb and Dumber—who allege that New Line breached their contract by not allowing them the opportunity to make the sequel themselves. According to them, it was stipulated in their old contract that they had rights of first negotiations for sequels and remakes. Presumably after they saw the scene where Jim Carrey lights his farts on fire, they knew they had a franchise on their hands.

According to THR, Red Granite Pictures—the studio behind the most recent Dumb iteration—sued Stabler and Krevoy to keep them out of the production. Stabler and Krevoy, in turn, countersued for racketeering. The whole thing was settled out of court, but now the two assert that New Line shouldn’t have ever given the rights to somebody else in the first place, and are suing for $1 million in damages.

As if that’s not enough, THR also has reporting on how pissed the U.S. government is about the film. Their lawsuit contends that Red Granite funded their film using stolen Malaysian money. They believe that corrupt Malaysian officials could have funneled as much as $50 million into two accounts for Dumb and Dumber To maintained by Red Granite. Because of this, the government is hoping to secure rights to the film. To what end, only God knows.

Hopefully this doesn’t hurt our chances of seeing Dumb and Dumberest: Financial Grift. On second thought, maybe it’s better to let this franchise go gently into that good night.