Other Mommy Box Office Wins Opening Weekend; Social Reckoning Bombs

Other Mommy was in command at the box office in its opening weekend, while The Social Reckoning received a painful status check as Aaron Sorkin‘s follow-up to The Social Network went quiet.

Universal Pictures released Other Mommy in 3,200 North American theaters, and the horror title grossed around $27.5 million for the weekend despite overwhelmingly negative responses from critics and audiences alike. Director Rob Savage’s film lands above the studio’s projected $20 million opening for the $19 million-budgeted project, which stars Jessica Chastain as a sinister entity that appears in a young girl’s closet.

The movie managed a successful launch in spite of its word of mouth, having earned a woeful D+ CinemaScore from audiences, the lowest grade for a film since Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis in September 2024. Critical response has been similarly dismal, with Other Mommy holding a 19 percent approval rating from reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, along with a 46 percent audience score. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, critic Richard Lawson deemed the movie “an attractive but mostly vacuous collection of jumpy bits and half-baked mythology.” The studio credits the startling Other Mommy trailer that first screened ahead of Universal’s The Odyssey with creating buzz for the horror feature.

Despite the reception, Other Mommy continues a triumphant box office year for horror titles, particularly original ones. The domestic box office is expected to generate an estimated $88 million for the frame, according to Rentrak, representing a 23.6 percent improvement over last year’s comparable weekend, which saw Tron: Ares opening to $33.5 million domestically. The 2026 domestic box office crossed the $8 billion mark on Friday and stands at $8.077 billion as of Sunday, which is up 19.6 percent over the $6.7 billion collected at the equivalent point in 2025. However, this weekend represented a box office lull after a hot summer, with FranchiseRe estimating that the frame is down around 27 percent from the combined averages for the equivalent weekends in the pre-pandemic years of 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The start for Sony Pictures’ The Social Reckoning was even softer than expected, as director Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook-focused feature notched $5.5 million. This is slightly below the $7 million the studio expected for the fact-based thriller starring Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong, which follows a Facebook staffer (Madison) working with a journalist (White) to expose concerning truths about the company. Earning a B- CinemaScore, the $30 million-budgeted movie launched in 2,606 North American locations.

After winning an Academy Award for penning the screenplay for 2010’s The Social Network, Sorkin replaces David Fincher in the director’s chair for the companion piece. Starring Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg in the story of Facebook’s early days, that film was a bona fide hit, opening at No. 1 with $22.4 million in October 2010 before an impressive run took it to $224 million globally. Strong portrays an older Zuckerberg in the new movie.

While The Social Network boasts a 96 Rotten Tomatoes score, critics have been mixed on the follow-up, as The Social Reckoning holds a 54 percent approval from reviewers and a 71 percent audience rating. In his review for THR, chief film critic David Rooney praised it as an “engrossing whistleblower thriller.”

The challenged return for The Social Reckoning spurs questions about the commercial prospects for other films debuting later this year that examine controversial tech figures. Also launching soon are the forthcoming Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything and Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI-focused Artificial, while Bleecker Street’s doc Musk opened at four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. “They seem to have a better home on streaming than on the big screen,” David A. Gross, who runs the box office newsletter FranchiseRe, told THR about tech-centric projects. “Even when they’re well made, they’re not very cinematic in terms of what really works theatrically, which involves some kind of visual or emotional experience.”

Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk-focused documentary Musk collected around $68,900 for Bleecker Street, averaging $17,225 per screen.

Debuting in limited release from A24 was Chris Rock’s Misty Green, which nabbed $85,716 from six locations in New York and Los Angeles. Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver and Daniel Kaluuya star in the film about a fading actress angling for a comeback. Rooney described it as “the work of a mature director who knows what he wants to say.”

Also launching theatrically was the documentary NAZA, earning an estimated $247,000 from 72 North American locations. The Israeli-American Council organized a protest on Friday outside of the Laemmle NoHo 7 in North Hollywood, timed to the screening of the feature that examines Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Claiming second place was Verity, Amazon MGM Studios’ Colleen Hoover adaptation that was last weekend’s winner. It grossed $11.4 million for a domestic cume of $53.8 million, marking a decline of roughly 64 percent in its sophomore frame. Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett star in filmmaker Michael Showalter’s thriller about a woman getting in over her head after landing a ghostwriting gig.

Sony’s Resident Evil landed $8.3 million in its fourth frame to bring its total domestic take to roughly $138.5 million. Austin Abrams stars in Zach Cregger’s reboot of the franchise that adapts the video game property.

Paramount’s Heart of the Beast added $7.1 million to bring its domestic total to $49.6 million in its third weekend. David Ayer’s thriller stars Brad Pitt as a Special Forces officer navigating the wilderness with his combat dog.

Among the offerings heading to theaters next weekend include Street Fighter, Whalefall and Sense and Sensibility.

This story was first published on Oct. 10 at 9:27 a.m.