‘Other Mommy’ Scares Up a No. 1 Opening Despite a D+ CinemaScore

Jessica Chastain’s horror film beat its $20 million projection, while Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning opened to just $5.5 million.

Jessica Chastain

Featured image: Jessica Chastain. Photo: Gabriel Hutchinson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The Lowdown

Other Mommy is proof that a great trailer can sell tickets even when nobody likes the movie. A D+ CinemaScore usually means a steep second-weekend drop, so enjoy the win while it lasts. The Social Reckoning’s stumble is the more worrying sign for grown-up studio dramas.

Key Takeaways

  • Other Mommy opened at No. 1 for October 9–11 with $27.8 million from 3,365 theaters (Box Office Mojo).
  • The $19 million horror film from director Rob Savage earned a D+ CinemaScore and a 19% Rotten Tomatoes score (The Hollywood Reporter).
  • Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning opened to about $5.5 million on a $30 million budget (The Hollywood Reporter).
  • The 2026 domestic box office crossed $8 billion that weekend, up 19.6% on the same point in 2025 (The Hollywood Reporter).

The Story

Universal’s Other Mommy won the October 9–11 weekend, opening to $27.8 million from 3,365 theaters (Box Office Mojo). The studio had projected about $20 million for the $19 million production (The Hollywood Reporter).

The film stars Jessica Chastain as a sinister entity that appears in a young girl’s closet. Reviews and audience grades were rough: a D+ CinemaScore, which THR called the lowest grade for a film since Megalopolis in September 2024, and a 19% approval rating from critics. Universal credits the trailer, which first screened ahead of The Odyssey, with building buzz (The Hollywood Reporter).

Sony’s The Social Reckoning had a harder time. Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to The Social Network, starring Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong as an older Mark Zuckerberg, opened to about $5.5 million from 2,606 locations, below the studio’s $7 million expectation (The Hollywood Reporter).

Other Mommy did not hold. It fell 70.5% the following weekend to $8.2 million (Box Office Mojo). Still, it extended a strong year for original horror, and the 2026 domestic box office stood at $8.077 billion that Sunday (The Hollywood Reporter).

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