(Welcome to Tales from the Box Office, our column that examines box office miracles, disasters, and everything in between, as well as what we can learn from them.)

"If you went into a movie called 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective' and you were doing the stuff I was doing in that movie, would you be expecting while you were doing that movie that it was going to be huge?" Jim Carrey asked this to radio shock-jock Howard Stern in 1994 shortly after the actor's movie opened unexpectedly atop the box office. Stern bluntly responded with "No" but it was, in fact, a monster hit. It was one of three such hits that Carrey would be a part of that year, making it one of arguably the best years that any actor has had — from a commercial standpoint — in history.

Yet, it all started with a movie that, as Stern pointed out,...