HOLLYWOOD -- To studio executives, capitalizing on a hit movie always seem like a smart move.

The 1994 gross-out comedy Dumb & Dumber grossed $246 million US worldwide and added $64 million in video rentals.

Not bad for a flick that cost $16 million.

That's why we'll be seeing When Harry Met Lloyd: Dumb & Dumberer this summer.

"My phone didn't ring, probably because Jim Carrey didn't take any of their calls," says Jeff Daniels, who played Harry to Carrey's Lloyd in the original Dumbfest.

As Daniels also points out, Carrey's $20-million paycheque is greater than the cost of the original film.

"I know they talked to Jim right after the film was such a hit, but even then he was reluctant to do a sequel.

"Even the Farrelly brothers (who wrote and directed the original) are not involved in this one, so even if I had been contacted I'd have declined."

Dumb & Dumberer is a prequel, set in the high school where Harry and Lloyd first meet.

Eric Christian Olsen, who starred in The Hot Chick and Not Another Teen Movie, is playing teenage Lloyd, and Derek Richardson will make his screen debut as young Harry.

"Something tells me those guys are a bit cheaper."

When Dumb & Dumber opened, Daniels' sons were in elementary school. "They wore their Dumb & Dumber hats to school, and when they walked down the hallways, the kids parted like the Red Sea for Moses.

"For them, at that time, that film was the best choice I could have made."

Daniels stars in the Civil War epic Gods and Generals that opens Friday, and plays opposite Meryl Streep in The Hours.

He will be seen later this year in the taut drama I Witness about a tragedy in Tijuana.


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