Jessica Chastain led the Martin Luther King Day box office weekend scoring the number one and two spot with her two films "Mama" and "Zero Dark Thirty." It was the first time since 1997 that a film star led the top two spots. That year Leonardo Dicaprio led with "The Man in the Iron Mask" and "Titanic."
The Guillermo de Toro produced film, "Mama," starring Jessica Chastain scored a projected $33.2 million. The film profited from the PG-13 rating stated Universal's Nikki Rocco. She said that "There hasn't been a PG-13 film targeted at young girls in a long time," and "Our film really stood on its own." The films audience was made up of Hispanics and 35 percent of the audience showed up on opening night.
In number two, the Oscar nominated film "Zero Dark Thirty" took in $21.4 million over the four days pushing its cume to $60 million. With the continuing controversy, word of mouth and awards, the Jessica Chastain-starred film is set to make $100 million.
The Oscar nominee "Silver Lining Playbook" climbed to the third spot with a whopping $14.2 million. After box office observers thought Harvey Weinstein had made a mistake by opening the film in limited release in November, the film over performed. The Weinstein company stated, "I never thought we'd come in third place," and "This is a big victory for our strategy and the great word-of-mouth the film is getting. The sky's the limit."
The other new releases disappointed. In the fifth spot, the Russell Crowe-Mark Wahlberg film "Broken City" made $10 million, tying "Gangster Squad." The results were most likely due to the bad reviews and the lack of word of mouth.
"The Last Stand" came in at number 10 after earning an expected $7.4 million for the four days. The film marked Schwarzenegger's first leading role since 2003 and doesn't bode well for the actor's planned return to stardom. Eighty percent of the audience was older than 25.
Oscar nominees "Django Unchained" and "Les Miserables" continued to soar at the box office. "Unchained" made $8.2 million for a cume of $138.3 million and "Les Mis" made $7.8 million for a total of $130.4 million.
In the specialty box office "Amour" over-performed making $413,261 for a location average of $11,479 with a total of $1.2 million. Indomina bowed the 2012 Sundance title "LUV" at 45 locations via its partnership with AMC Independent, averaging a lukewarm $2,000 per screen through Sunday. The film's three-day estimated total is $90,000.