The Jessica Chastain Factor, and 5 Other Stories You'll Be Talking About Today

Happy Tuesday! Also in this edition of The Broadsheet: Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme get Expendable ... Will Noah Baumbach and HBO make Corrections? ... Colin Firth is sick of Hollywood treating you like and idiot ... and more...

· In the sweet spot between breakout ingenue and wild overexposure, you'll find the lovely and talented Jessica Chastain. She's in the holiday weekend's top two movies, which wasn't by accident, according the The Debt's distributor: "So many people have seen Jessica's performance in The Help that I think it helped us that she was a familiar face that some people were happy to see again," distribution boss Jack Foley told the LAT. "We put our trailer up on The Help -- because we knew that for adult moviegoers going to the movie theater, it was going to be, 'Now we've seen The Help, what can we see this weekend?'" Smart! Though a certain older co-star didn't hurt either. [LAT]

· The Expendables 2 just got testosteronier: Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme are listed among the ensemble additions to the all-star action sequel. [Millennium Films via IGN]

· Word on the street is that Noah Baumbach is developing an adaptation of novelist Jonathan Franzen's celebrated bestseller The Corrections for HBO. Scott Rudin, who's had the book's rights for years, is said to be executive producing.

[THR]

· We know the new drama Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is sublime cinema, but might it be a little too... slow for mainstream viewers? Not at all, says co-star Colin Firth: "I do think there is a tendency to underestimate audiences, I do think there is an appetite to be stretched. I do think people want to hear language at its best on the screen. I'm optimistic about it having an enormous audience." You tell 'em. [The Guardian]

· California has some brutally tough economic decisions to make in the months and years ahead, and Hollywood -- both studios and unions -- are making sure Sacramento knows its $500 million tax credit for keeping productions in the state is essential for doing business. Maybe! Maybe they could also fund a few ailing school districts with a fraction of that record $4.4 billion the industry made this summer. [LAT]

· Think you work long hours? Tell it to a Mexican. [Tribe HR via The Dish]