Jessica Chastain at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, February 2025. Photo: Harald Krichel / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Horror beat homework at the North American box office this weekend. Universal and Blumhouse's "Other Mommy," starring Jessica Chastain, earned $27.5 million in 3,365 theaters to claim the No. 1 spot, while Aaron Sorkin's Facebook drama "The Social Reckoning" managed only $5.5 million from 2,606 theaters, landing in fifth place.
Directed by Rob Savage ("Host") and adapted from Josh Malerman's novel "Incidents Around the House," "Other Mommy" follows a sinister supernatural entity that torments a young girl who believes it is her mother. Critics were brutal — the film sits near 18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes — and audiences handed it a rare D+ CinemaScore. None of it mattered much at the ticket counter.
Against a production budget of roughly $19 million, the $27.5 million domestic debut plus $17.7 million from 50 international markets pushed its worldwide opening to about $45.2 million, putting it comfortably on the path to profitability.
"No matter how you look at it, everybody turned out for it. It wasn't just one particular demographic," said Jim Orr, Universal's head of domestic distribution, via the Associated Press. "That usually is a very good sign."
"The Social Reckoning" had no such luck. Written and directed by Sorkin as a follow-up to 2010's "The Social Network," the film centers on a Facebook whistleblower who leaks internal documents to a Wall Street Journal reporter, starring Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong. Made for about $30 million, it earned mixed-to-negative reviews, a B- CinemaScore and just $3.5 million overseas. The contrast with the original is stark: the 2010 film opened above $22 million, grossed more than $224 million worldwide and won three Academy Awards.
Horror owned the rest of the chart as well. The Anne Hathaway thriller "Verity" took second with $11.5 million in its sophomore weekend, while the "Resident Evil" reboot placed third with $8.4 million. Tom Cruise's "Digger" cratered 60 percent to $3.2 million in its second frame.
The weekend extended horror's remarkable 2026 run as Hollywood's most reliable genre: micro-budget hits like "Obsession" and "Backrooms" rank among the year's most profitable films relative to their costs. Overall, the domestic box office crossed $8 billion for the year and sits up more than 19 percent over last year, according to Rentrak.