The “Year of Jessica Chastain” rolls on.
After collecting her second Oscar nomination, this time for the war-on-terror thriller Zero Dark Thirty, the actress won the box office for a second consecutive weekend … and managed to claim the top two slots on the Top 10 chart.
In addition to Thirty, which continued to build on its awards momentum, Chastain saw her supernatural witch drama Mama take the No. 1 slot on the B.O. charts with an estimated $28.1M. The film likely drew Guillermo Del Toro’s fans, as the Hellboy director helped produce the ghostly tale.
But Chastain is proving to be a box-office powerhouse. ZDT grabbed the No. 2 slot with an estimated $17.6M as Oscar helped power interest in the Best Picture nominee. Kathryn Bigelow’s hunt for Osama bin Laden has now earned more than $55M – respectable for a movie with Oscar aspirations.
Movies that don’t star Jessica Chastain also performed well at the box office, though they didn’t come close to the lead.
David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook expanded to approximately 2,400 theaters this weekend in hopes of building on its Academy Award momentum … and it worked very well for the Weinstein Company. Though the movie has been screening in limited release for 10 weeks, the brilliant comedy added a whopping $11M this weekend, pushing its cume to a healthy $55M.
Broken City with Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe only chipped in $9M in tickets sold.
But that was better than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comeback vehicle The Last Stand, which limped to a $6.3M finish – good for a tenth-place finish on the weekend.
Here’s the full Top 10 list for the weekend:
MOVIE / WEEKEND / TOTAL
1. Mama, $28.1M
2. Zero Dark Thirty, $17.6M, $55.9M
3. Silver Linings Playbook, $11.3M, $55.3M
4. Gangster Squad, $9.1M, $32.2M
5. Broken City, $9M
6. A Haunted House, $8.3M
7. Django Unchained, $8.2M, $138.3M
8. Les Miserables, $7.8M, $130.3M
9. The Hobbit, $6.4M, $287.3M
10. The Last Stand, $6.3M
Follow along on Twitter @Sean_OConnell and @Fandango.
