Eighties teen-movie filmmaker John Hughes had many movies he never got the chance to make, with the 1994 smash-hit Jim Carrey comedy Dumb and Dumber being one of his biggest lost opportunities. Launching the career of The Farrelly Brothers and grossing nearly $250 million at the box office, the slapstick road movie about dimwitted Harry and Lloyd driving across the United States to deliver a lost briefcase has more than endured, spawning a prequel, sequel, and even a short-lived animated series.
John Hughes was no stranger to low-brow comedy humor, getting his start by writing for the National Lampoon Magazine and then going on to launch the Vacation franchise with Chevy Chase. Because of this, many of his films, like Sixteen Candles, have not aged well. But the filmmaker’s tastes ranged from more family-friendly entertainment like Home Alone and Uncle Buck to outright children’s films like the Saint Bernard-centric Beethoven movies. Best known for his string of teen movie hits, which starred young actors like Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, Hughes’ most popular hits include Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Releasing multiple movies each year until the early 1980s to mid-1990s, the very successful Hughes disappeared from the industry until his sudden death in 2009.
Hughes had a particular world where his movies were set; the fictional upper-class Chicago suburb of Shermer. Had Dumb and Dumber have been a Hughes movie, the Rhode Island setting would have taken place in Illinois instead. The best and worst of Hughes’ 1980s movies featured many synthesizer-filled pop ballads that would have likely changed the silly tone of Dumb and Dumber. Most of all, Hughes’ films possessed more of a dramatic and heartwarming core, meaning many of the off-the-wall jokes like the dead parakeet and infamous toilet scene would've never stuck. Publicizing the fact he wouldn't end movies on a negative note, the somewhat aimless and anticlimactic scene with Harry and Lloyd walking home empty-handed would surely have been changed. Interestingly enough, however, is that Dumb and Dumber started its life as a John Hughes project; he attempted to write a script about two dumb guys running around a ski resort in Colorado and couldn’t make it work.
Peter and Bobby Farrelly were struggling screenwriters in the late-1980s who were making a living punching up other scripts while actor Jim Carrey was far from making film history. Hughes brought them and writing partner Bennet Yellin to write the screenplay for him. Hughes loved what he read, but several studio deals fell through at that moment, and everything he was working on got tossed aside. Nothing ultimately happened with Dumb and Dumber for nearly three years. When the Farrellys got tired of waiting, they decided to make it themselves and asked for the rights to the script. Hughes agreed, but only on the condition that they take his name off the project.
The Farrelly Brothers got the movie made, which turned out to be a massive hit. It showcased their brand of humor and helped make theirs and Jim Carrey movies defining staples of 1990s comedy. At the same time, Dumb and Dumber was released, Hughes was winding down with projects – directing his final movie, Curly Sue, in 1991. There’s no record of Hughes ever commenting on the movie or proof he ever saw it, but the finished product would have been very different. Other actors like John Candy or Mathew Broderick would likely have played Harry and Lloyd, while his version would have been more sentimental and likely closer to his own fondly remembered road trip comedy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.