More 'Fun With Dick And Jane'

Jim Carrey is one of the most successful actors of all time. His films have taken in close to $2 billion in the United States alone, and his latest movie, "Fun with Dick and Jane," hits video stores today.

Entertainment contributor Jess Cagle is also People magazine's editor at large and he visited The Early Show Tuesday with all the details.

"Fun with Dick and Jane" took in $200 million worldwide, Cagle said. It's an update of the 1970s classic, which starred George Segal and Jane Fonda, but Carrey said in an interview that the subject matter was ripe for revision.

"I'm not crazy about remakes. But when this idea came up, I just thought, you know, this is kind of perfect," he said. "It's a time when we're witnessing a lot of corporate corruption … I think it's more relevant today than it was when they made it way back in 1977."

In "Fun with Dick and Jane," Carrey plays a public relations executive who loses his job and is bankrupted when his company goes down in an Enron-like scandal. He and his wife, Jane, played by Tea Leoni, eventually resort to a life of crime.

"I just wanted it to be really funny," said Carrey. "And it was like a little balancing act because of the serious nature of the backdrop, you know, of the movie."

Besides its relevant corporate themes, the movie also gave Carrey a chance to find humor in a devastating chapter in his own life. When he was a child, his own father lost his job.

"He was the controller of a company. He had worked his way up. And he, basically, he was let go and kind of lost heart at that point," he said. "And I saw him kind of, you know, lose his zest for life. And suddenly, I went from being an A student, to not being able to understand what the teacher said. You know, it just was all Charlie Brown to me."

Carrey struggled through that time, and found that making "Fun with Dick and Jane" helped him work through those difficult memories.

"This is an interesting film because in a comedic way I can deal with that," he said, adding that the movie says a lot about the American obsession with keeping up with the Joneses. "It really is about how you're perceived. It's not about losing your lawn, it's about how you're perceived when you lose your lawn."

Cagle said the DVD also includes a gag reel and some hilarious deleted scenes.