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Bruce Hall : Jessica Chastain has a bright future, but I'm not sure she was the draw here. Horror fans looking for a late winter morsel finally got the sincere effort they wanted. This is a generally well informed demographic, so if anything, Guillermo del Toro's involvement may have been more compelling. Either way, this is a solid win for a film without a franchise to lean on.

Felix Quinonez: As we've all mentioned on this site before, this is just a good time of the year for horror movies. I think this movie was going to do well regardless but I also believe that Jessica Chastain's current high profile and the decent reviews helped take this opening from a solid performer to outright hit.

Matthew Huntley: I think we can all agree both Jessica Chastain and Guillermo del Toro's names didn't hurt Mama's performance and the former's probably raised more awareness than the latter's, especially with her string of hits and appearances over the last couple years. But I agree with Brett that this was mostly due to the PG-13 rating, the genre and the time of year, including the fact it's a three-day weekend. All this tapped into the the key teenage-girl demographic, who tend to flock to films of this nature. It helps, too, that the film is actually good and gives audiences the right bang for their buck. Word-of-mouth should be decent to see it soar to at least $65 million domestically, if not more. I'm curious how this movie would have done if it was released in October. You'd think horror movies would perform best prior to/right around Halloween, but January seems to be the genre's sweet spot, as everyone on this thread has already attested to.

Kim Hollis: Chastain did a really nice job of promoting the film (I saw her on one of the morning shows on Friday morning while I was temporarily shut in by ice). I think it was extremely well marketed, with both the trailers and the television commercials seeming to give the idea that this movie somehow offered something different than your typical horror film - and apparently that is true. I really wish we'd see more original ideas like this instead of the same old tired concepts that keep being rehashed over and over again.

David Mumpower: I think that the premise here is a lot better than the average horror movie. If anything, I see the recent glut of horror films as problematic. In a saturated marketplace, a genre movie like this has to really stand out. Mama did. Those ads were creepy as anything I can recall in ages. I made a statement when Resident Evil came out that I still believe. There is nothing in the world scarier than a child who seems capable of murder. Mama has that in spades. I have mentioned in previous MMQBs that I have watched so many lousy horror flicks that the idea of one more should have me curled up in the fetal position. I'm going to watch Mama in the theater because it looks phenomenally creepy. I suspect that a lot of people who saw Mama this weekend felt similarly.

Kim Hollis: Broken City, featuring the unlikely pairing of Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe, opened to $9 million over the three-day portion of the holiday weekend. Why do you think audiences were less than enthusiastic about this title?

Edwin Davies: The trailers did not make this seem like anything that you needed to see in a theater, especially since you could probably get all the sordid political shenanigans you could want by staying in and watching Scandal or The Good Wife or any number of shows on TV. These kind of thriller/dramas also need critical support to convince people that they are worth checking out, and with so many awards contenders still out there I think a lot of people looked at Broken City and thought, "Yeah, what else is on?"

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