Director Rob Savage's Other Mommy, starring Jessica Chastain as a sinister entity haunting a young girl's closet, opened strong across 3,200 North American theaters. Its impressive $12.6 million Friday take, which included Thursday previews, propelled it past Universal's initial $20 million projection for the $19 million-budgeted film. However, this financial success stands in stark contrast to its reception. Audiences awarded it a dismal D+ CinemaScore, a grade not seen since Megalopolis in September 2024. Critics were equally unimpressed, with Rotten Tomatoes showing a mere 19% approval rating, alongside a 46% audience score. As Richard Lawson, a critic for The Hollywood Reporter, put it, the movie is "an attractive but mostly vacuous collection of jumpy bits and half-baked mythology."
Meanwhile, Sony Pictures' The Social Reckoning struggled to find its footing. The drama, which follows a Facebook staffer (Mikey Madison) working with a journalist (Jeremy Allen White) to expose corporate truths, opened in 2,606 locations and managed just $2.1 million on Friday, leading to a projected $6 million for the weekend—slightly below the studio's $7 million expectation. This $30 million-budgeted feature marks Aaron Sorkin's return to the director's chair for a story centered on the social media giant, a decade after his Oscar-winning screenplay for 2010's The Social Network. That earlier film, directed by David Fincher and starring Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, was a box office triumph, opening at $22.4 million and eventually grossing $224 million globally. While The Social Network boasts a near-perfect 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, its companion piece has garnered a more mixed critical response, sitting at 54% approval from reviewers. However, its audience score is a more favorable 71%. The Hollywood Reporter's chief film critic, David Rooney, praised the film as an "engrossing whistleblower thriller." Jeremy Strong portrays an older Mark Zuckerberg in the new film.
The weekend's results highlight a fascinating dichotomy: a poorly reviewed horror film overperforming financially, and a critically mixed drama from an acclaimed filmmaker underperforming. It underscores the often unpredictable nature of audience tastes and the enduring, sometimes inexplicable, appeal of the horror genre, even when critics are left wanting.