Other Mommy led the domestic box office with roughly $12.6 million on its opening day, combining $12.3 million in Friday ticket sales with $3.6 million in Thursday night previews, according to Deadline. The horror film is now projected to debut with $27.5 million across 3,365 screens this weekend, well above its earlier mid-$20 million target.
The Social Reckoning, Sony’s Aaron Sorkin-directed drama about Facebook, struggled by comparison. The film opened at number five with about $2.95 million combined, made up of $2.3 million on Friday and $650,000 in Thursday previews, Deadline reported. Its projected weekend total of $6 million falls at the low end of the $7 million to $8 million range Variety had forecast earlier in the week.
Other Mommy Box Office Opening Tops Weekend Field
Other Mommy stars Jessica Chastain in dual roles as a mother and the creature stalking her family, directed by Rob Savage and produced by James Wan’s Atomic Monster alongside Blumhouse, according to Variety. The film carried a production budget of $19 million, meaning its projected $27.5 million opening weekend already covers that cost before marketing and distribution expenses.
The result came despite a rocky critical reception. Polygon reported the film sits at 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics describing it as “an attractive but mostly vacuous collection of jumpy bits” built on half-baked mythology and ineffective jump scares. Reviewers also pointed to odd pacing, unintentional comedy and weak scares, with some saying the teaser trailer was the best part of the movie, per Polygon. Deadline listed a more favorable 59% score, but either figure points to a film that divided critics even as audiences showed up.
Deadline noted horror has long been considered a safe bet in October as Halloween approaches, a pattern that appears to be holding again this year.
What The Numbers Mean For Both Films
The gap between the two openings is stark. Other Mommy’s single-day haul of roughly $12.6 million is more than four times The Social Reckoning’s comparable figure near $2.95 million. For a horror title built on jump scares and a recognizable star, strong reviews were never a requirement to open big.
Deadline pointed to Digger, a Warner Bros. release that opened to $8 million with $1.2 million in previews and went on to flop, as an example of how a soft start can doom a film even without the genre headwinds horror avoids. The Social Reckoning faces a tougher road precisely because its audience is more selective, Deadline reported, meaning the poor reviews likely carry more weight with potential ticket buyers than they would for a horror crowd chasing scares.
Background On Both Films
The Social Reckoning stars Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg, Mikey Madison as a whistleblower and Jeremy Allen White as a Wall Street Journal reporter, with Sorkin both writing and directing, according to Variety. Sony has marketed the film as a companion piece to 2010’s The Social Network rather than a direct sequel, an effort to separate it from the original in viewers’ minds.
That distancing may matter. The Social Network opened to $22.4 million domestically in October 2010, held the top spot in its second weekend with just a 31% decline, and eventually grossed $224 million worldwide while winning four Oscars, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Social Reckoning’s early numbers fall far short of that trajectory. The Hollywood Reporter also noted other recent adult dramas, including Caught Stealing at $7.8 million and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere at $8.8 million, opened in a similar range to The Social Reckoning’s projections and ultimately underperformed, a pattern Variety has tied to adult dramas struggling to draw crowds in the years since the pandemic.
What’s Next
Both films will report full three-day weekend numbers once Saturday and Sunday ticket sales are tallied. Other Mommy’s $27.5 million projection would place it well clear of its $19 million budget, while The Social Reckoning’s $6 million estimate leaves Sony needing a steadier path to recoup a $30 million budget that was 50% financed by Alcon after incentives.
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