Corona | Coming Attractions

Judging from the box office returns from this weekend, we may have witnessed the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger's reign at the box office.

The new number one movie in the country is Mama, a horror-thriller executive produced by Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro. Mama stars Jessica Chastain in the top billing, and who incidentally also is the leading actor in this week's number two movie at the box office, Zero Dark Thirty.

Made for a modest low budget of just $15 million, Mama grossed an estimated $28.1 million dollars in its inaugural weekend.

Last week's #1 movie, Zero Dark Thirty, dropped to #2 with a weekend gross of $17.6m (giving the picture's five week run to stand at $55.9m.)

Oscar nominations have also buoyed business for another movie, Silver Linings Playbook. Both of its main stars, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, have Oscar nominations, which in turn has elevated interest in the romantic-drama. Silver Linings Playbook added another 1,700 screens to its run this weekend, giving the movie $11.3m in new ticket sales and a combined total of $55.3m.

Gangster Squad fell to #4 with $9.1m in new money. After two weekends out the film has earned $32.2m.

Broken City is another new release, this one starring Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe. It made $9m for 20th Century Fox, which is enough to secure it the #5 position.

A Haunted House drops four positions to #6 ($8.3m new, $29.9m total.)

Django Unchained falls three spots to #7 ($8.2m new, $138.3m total.)

Les Miserables is at #8 spot this week with $7.8m in new ticket sales. Four weekends into its theatrical run the musical has earned $130 million dollars domestically.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is now at #9 with $6.4m new dollars to add to its accumulated total of $287m.

And coming in at #10 is the new Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie The Last Stand with a debut of just $6.3m. To give this result some perspective, there hasn't been an Schwarzengger movie that's opened that low since 1986's Raw Deal ($5.4m, and that's in '86 dollars.)

Schwarzenegger has two other new pictures slates for release this year, Ten and The Tomb. Taking ten years off to be a politician probably hurt his standing in showbiz but even so, The Last Stand's opening would be considered a bomb by anyone's definition. If Arnold can't be guaranteed to open a new action movie could his days of being a leading man be finally behind him?