Universal and Blumhouse’s horror entry “Other Mommy” won the October 9–11 weekend box office with an estimated $28 million opening, beating the studio’s own $20 million projection, while Sony’s “The Social Reckoning” opened softly to about $6 million, according to weekend estimates reported by TheWrap and Deadline.
“Other Mommy,” directed by Rob Savage and starring Jessica Chastain as a sinister entity haunting a young girl, earned $13 million on Friday including Thursday previews from 3,365 screens. Produced for $19 million, the film should clear its break-even mark during its theatrical run — but its reception was brutal. Audiences gave it a D+ CinemaScore, the lowest grade recorded for any film since Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” in September 2024, and it holds roughly 20 percent with critics and 47 percent with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
The launch for Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” was even softer. The follow-up to the Oscar-winning “The Social Network” — starring Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong in a fact-based drama about the 2021 investigation into Facebook’s role in the January 6 riots — took in $2.1 million Friday from 2,606 locations. Its roughly $6 million opening is less than a third of the $22.4 million its predecessor earned in the fall of 2010, before adjusting for inflation. With a net production budget of $30 million co-financed by Alcon, analysts expect it to head to home viewing sooner rather than later.
Among holdovers, last weekend’s winner “Verity” took second place with an estimated $13 to $15 million, while the “Resident Evil” reboot held in third with about $7 million. Brad Pitt’s “Heart of the Beast” added roughly $7 million as well, neck and neck with “The Social Reckoning.”
For the second weekend in a row, overall estimates slipped below $90 million, underscoring a split market: critic-proof horror continues to draw crowds in the pre-Halloween corridor, while adult dramas — even ones from filmmakers like Sorkin — are struggling to pull audiences into theaters.
