Other Mommy Beats Sorkin With a D+ Opening

$27.8 million put Other Mommy first over October 9 to 11, and opening-night crowds still handed it a D+. Universal and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s chiller did that in 3,365 theaters, about 5.5 times the take of Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, which opened to $5.02 million in 2,606 locations.

Tom Cruise’s Digger, already in a hole after its first frame, fell 60 percent in weekend two. Cheap horror sold. The prestige titles did not.

A D+ Horror Movie Took the Weekend

Rob Savage’s film, from Josh Malerman’s Incidents Around the House, follows Bela, an 8-year-old who names a closet presence Other Mommy. Jessica Chastain plays the mother and the thing that wears her face. Jay Duplass, Arabella Olivia Clark, and Karen Allen round out the household. The running time is 93 minutes, and the rating is R.

Monday actuals from Box Office Mojo put the domestic opening at $27,805,825, a $8,263 theater average. Friday alone did $12,567,690. Overseas added $17,863,000, for a $45.7 million worldwide opening from about 50 markets. The reported production budget is $18 million. Theatrical break-even is already in reach, even if word of mouth cuts the second weekend in half.

OTHER MOMMY’S OPENING MATH

• Domestic actual: $27.8 million from 3,365 theaters, Universal Pictures.
• Global start: $45.7 million, with $17.9 million from international markets.
• Production cost: $18 million, with James Wan among the producers.
• Audience grade: D+, the lowest CinemaScore since Megalopolis in September 2024.

Jim Orr, Universal’s head of domestic distribution, said the crowd split evenly by gender and that about two-thirds were 18 to 34. “No matter how you look at it, everybody turned out for it. It wasn’t just one particular demographic,” Orr said. “That usually is a very good sign.”

A D+ is not a good sign for holds. Most surveyed crowds grade B or higher because they chose to be there. Hereditary also got a D+ and still became a long-tail horror title, but that film had critics. Other Mommy does not. The opening is a marketing win priced like a Blumhouse movie. It is not proof anyone will recommend it.

The Social Reckoning Opens at 22 Percent of 2010

Sorkin wrote and directed this companion to The Social Network, which Sony is careful not to call a sequel. Mikey Madison plays Frances Haugen, the Facebook data engineer who leaked internal research. Jeremy Allen White plays Jeff Horwitz, the Wall Street Journal reporter who published it. Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg, the role Jesse Eisenberg declined to reprise.

The film opened in the United States on October 9 after a September 29 premiere at London’s Curzon Mayfair. It is 112 minutes, rated R, and financed with Alcon Entertainment. The working production budget is $30 million. Studio tracking had pointed to about $7 million domestic. The actual is $5,018,263, a $1,925 average, 22 percent of The Social Network’s $22.4 million start in October 2010.

Overseas added $3,335,788, for $8.35 million worldwide so far. The 2010 film, which Sorkin wrote and David Fincher directed on a $40 million budget, finished at $97.0 million domestic and $224.9 million worldwide. Audiences then gave it a B+. This one got a B minus. Rotten Tomatoes posted 55 percent positive from 214 critics, with a 5.9 average. Metacritic’s weighted score is 52 from 55 critics.

Madison Plays Haugen, Strong Replaces Eisenberg

Sorkin and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth are the only major names who returned. Principal photography ran in Vancouver from October 22 to December 9, 2025, under the working title Goliath. Alexandre Desplat wrote the score, not Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Bill Burr, Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, and Billy Magnussen fill out the counsel rooms and newsroom.

Eisenberg turned the part down. Sorkin said he had felt the role belonged to him. “I felt like it belonged to him, and he was certainly battle-tested but he simply did not want to be conflated with Mark Zuckerberg anymore,” Sorkin said. “He has his problems with the guy.” Strong built the performance without copying Eisenberg’s version.

The Social Network Opened to $22.4 Million

The 2010 film arrived as a cultural event about a company that still felt new. This one dramatizes 2021, the Civic Integrity team, the Facebook Files, and a Senate prep session that collides with January 6. It closes on title cards: Facebook later dropped fact-checking, and 43 percent of Americans get news from the platform, the film says. That is an argument built for people who already believe it. They did not buy tickets in 2010 numbers.

The aggregator consensus called it “an urgent warning that feels like it’s arriving a little too late.” Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends, put the miss in plainer terms. “These movies that are topical in nature, sometimes they resonate with the culture, sometimes they don’t,” he said. “You don’t always know what’s going to connect with audiences.” He grouped it with Digger, which is a much more expensive miss.

Digger Falls 60 Percent to $964 a Screen

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film, with Cruise as oil tycoon Digger Rockwell, took $3,201,557 in 3,321 theaters. That is a 60 percent drop from its $8,001,856 opening, and a $964 average. Ten-day domestic is $14,434,311. Worldwide is $35,334,311, including $20.9 million overseas. Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, and Sandra Hüller co-star. The rating is R; the running time is 2 hours 9 minutes.

Analysts now expect a global finish around $50 million and a theatrical loss around $245 million. Warner Bros. has pushed back on the break-even math, not on the fact that the movie is underwater.

DIGGER’S COST STACK

• Greenlight: Warner Bros. approved $125 million.
• Shoot overruns: People with knowledge of the production put the final cost at $160 million to $180 million, figures a studio spokesperson has disputed.
• Global marketing: About $100 million on top of production.
• Break-even: Analysts cite $350 million worldwide; the studio’s figure is $300 million.
• Projected finish: About $50 million globally, against $35.3 million already in.

Opening-night crowds gave Digger a C+. That is kinder than Other Mommy’s D+, and it did not matter. A C+ on a film this expensive is still a verdict. Warner Bros. used “decide for yourself” spots after reviews split. Crowds decided, then stayed home. The per-screen number, $964, is the tell: the movie was still booked wide and nobody was in the seats.

It is also the studio’s last standalone release before the Paramount combination, and it sits on Warner’s auteur bet last weekend, when Verity opened on top and Digger already looked like the expensive half of the same wager.

Why Cheap Scares Still Recoup

Other Mommy cost $18 million and opened above that in North America alone. The Social Reckoning cost $30 million and has $8.35 million worldwide. Digger’s production-plus-marketing stack is in the high hundreds of millions, and it has $35.3 million. The pattern is the price, not the reviews.

David A. Gross, who publishes the FranchiseRe box office letter, said the Other Mommy split is unusual even by horror’s standards.

Horror movies are generally immune to a negative reception, but this is extreme.

David A. Gross, box office analyst, FranchiseRe

Horror has been the 2026 theatrical habit. Backrooms, Scream 7, and Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil all opened larger than Other Mommy among this year’s scare titles. Blumhouse’s method is the same each time: a contained budget, a trailer that travels, a first weekend that does the recoup, and little interest in a CinemaScore. Other Mommy is that method at its most naked. The D+ is the bill coming due next Friday, not this one.

Adult dramas still need the older crowd that has not fully returned to multiplexes, and they need reviews that feel like an event. The Social Reckoning got mixed notices and a B minus. The Social Network got a B+ and a $22.4 million opening when Facebook itself was the event. Sixteen years later, a movie about the Facebook Files is a streaming title that happened to play in 2,606 theaters.

Verity and Resident Evil Keep Horror on Top

The rest of the top five was holdover genre. Amazon MGM’s Verity, with Dakota Johnson, took $12,005,559 in 3,572 theaters, down 62.5 percent, and has $54,384,610 after two weeks. Sony’s Resident Evil added $8,563,158, down 32.1 percent, and has $138,738,566 after four. Paramount’s Heart of the Beast, with Brad Pitt, took $7,438,829, down 31.6 percent, and crossed $50,000,490 in 17 days.

A 62.5 percent drop for Verity is a front-loaded erotic thriller doing what those films do. A 32 percent drop for Resident Evil is a healthier hold. Other Mommy now has to live in that weather with a D+. If it falls like Verity, Universal still keeps the opening. If it falls like Digger, the $18 million budget is the parachute Digger never had.

Forgotten Island added $4,703,380 for $30,475,710, DreamWorks. A24’s Primetime did $4,014,003 and has $41,467,633. Angel Studios’ Angel and the Badman opened to $2,115,116 in 2,263 theaters, a $934 average that looks like Digger’s. Universal’s The Odyssey, in week 13, rose 65.5 percent to $2,147,960 in 560 theaters and has $623,120,750. Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in week 11, is at $956,891,779, which is how a $30 million Sorkin miss becomes a rounding error on the same lot.

The Weekend’s Top 10, Ranked by Actuals

Sunday studio estimates had Other Mommy at $27.5 million and The Social Reckoning at $5.5 million. Monday’s domestic weekend chart trimmed the Sorkin film and nudged the horror title up.

OCTOBER 9 TO 11 DOMESTIC ACTUALS

A 20th-anniversary booking of Pan’s Labyrinth took $1,640,107 in 1,168 theaters just outside the ten. The ranking is the weekend’s argument in one grid: three scare-or-thriller titles, a Pitt adventure, then Sorkin, then Cruise.

Strong Texts Chastain After the Spanking Headline

Chastain and Strong have been friends for more than 20 years and have shared three films, Zero Dark Thirty, Molly’s Game, and Armageddon Time. They opened against each other on October 9. On October 12 she posted their texts to her Instagram Story.

Strong sent a headline that read “Other Mommy Spanks The Social Reckoning at the Box Office,” with the two of them in character side by side. Chastain wrote “Omg.” He sent a middle-finger emoji and a kiss. She called the pictures “hysterical” and told him he looked “SO SAD” as Zuckerberg. He told her she looked “INSANE.”

That is the weekend in a screenshot. The D+ movie sold the tickets. The Facebook follow-up became a joke two friends could text. Digger, still in 3,321 theaters, is the one that cannot laugh its way out of a $245 million hole.