Jessica Chastain tops US box office with Mama and Zero Dark Thirty

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/jan/21/jessica-chastain-mama

Version 0 of 1.

These are great times for Jessica Chastain. The Juilliard graduate burst on to the scene in 2011 after many years at the coalface, including a dispiriting four-year stint immediately following her arrival in Los Angeles when she could not get a single movie role. What a difference a few years makes. Chastain won the Golden Globe best dramatic actress prize last weekend for Zero Dark Thirty and is considered the Oscar frontrunner for her role as the CIA operative Maya.

Zero Dark Thirty fell one place to No 2 behind Chastain's new movie, the horror story Mama. The latter opened well at the top of the North American charts on an estimated $28.1m through Universal Pictures. Chastain told me last week that Mama was the first movie she signed on to after Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life came out in 2011. She didn't want to be typecast as a housewife and likes to mix things up. There's no doubt she does that in this creepy tale about a couple who adopt two feral children found in the woods.

Overall it was a solid session at the box office as the top 12 movies climbed approximately 10% on the comparable session last year. Zero Dark Thirty (a best picture Oscar nominee) stands at $55.9m after five weekends in release through Columbia Pictures and is chugging along nicely in the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards.

The other Oscar contender that has started to gain ground is The Weinstein Company's Silver Linings Playbook. After 10 weekends the rom-com ranks third on $55.3m after Harvey Weinstein finally expanded it into 2,523 theatres. This is also expected to stick around for a while and is doing great business.

I am crestfallen to report that Arnold Schwarzenegger's comeback was a wipeout. The Last Stand, the former Governor of California's first starring role in an action movie in close to 10 years, limped in on 10th place on a miserable $6.3m. It co-stars Johnny Knoxville from the Jackass franchise.

But now is definitely not the time to write off Arnie. Free of his civic duties to the great bankrupt state of California, the man is back making movies and has quite a few lined up, including returns to the Terminator and Conan properties. Personally I believe he should find a great comedy writer and star in an another self-parody. But a glance at the Arnie runway reveals that he still yearns for action and we can look forward to two releases later this year that could prosper. The Tomb co-stars Sylvester Stallone and is shaping up to be at least a solid movie, given that Mikael Hafstrom (1408, The Rite) is in the director's chair. However, the one that looks more intriguing is the DEA thriller Ten. David Ayer wrote and directed it as his follow-up to End of Watch and it looks badass, as I believe they say in these parts.

<strong>North American top 10, 18-20 January 2013 </strong>

1. Mama, $28.1m

2. Zero Dark Thirty, $17.6m. Total: $55.9m

3. Silver Linings Playbook, $11.4m. Total: $55.3m

4. Gangster Squad, $9.1m. Total: $32.2m

5. Broken City, $9m

6. A Haunted House, $8.3m. Total: $29.9m

7. Django Unchained, $8.2m. Total: $138.4m

8. Les Misérables, $7.8m. Total:$130.4m

9. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, $6.4m. Total: $287.4m

10. The Last Stand, $6.3m