Chastain's Other Mommy Wins Weekend With $27.5M as Sorkin's The Social Reckoning Stalls at No. 5

Universal and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster's horror film Other Mommy opened at number one in North America with an estimated $27.5 million, according to Sunday studio estimates, even as audiences gave it a D+ CinemaScore and reviews were poor. Sony's The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin's long-awaited follow-up to The Social Network, started slowly with $5.5 million.

The Jessica Chastain thriller, directed by Rob Savage and based on Josh Malerman's 2024 novel Incidents Around the House, earned its $27.5 million from 3,365 theaters, an average of about $8,172 per location. That is well above the roughly $20 million that most forecasts expected. Daily estimates reported by Deadline put Friday at $12.6 million, including previews, followed by $8.95 million on Saturday and $5.95 million on Sunday.

Blumhouse produced the film for about $19 million, according to iHorror. It also opened in 50 overseas markets, bringing its global start to $45.2 million. Chastain plays Ursula, the girl's real mother, as well as the frightening entity known as the Other Mommy.

The opening crowd split evenly by gender, and about two-thirds were aged 18 to 34. Yet the D+ CinemaScore matches the grade audiences gave Hereditary and Megalopolis, and analysts expect a steep second-weekend fall of at least 70%. JoBlo noted the film should still earn a significant profit given its budget.

Amazon MGM's Verity, the Colleen Hoover adaptation starring Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett and Dakota Johnson, fell 64% to $11.5 million for second place. Its domestic total stands at $53.8 million, and TheWrap reports a worldwide haul of $113 million against a reported $40 million budget. Warner Bros./Legendary's Digger also dropped 64% in its second weekend. Both films earned C+ CinemaScores.

The Social Reckoning opened in fifth place from 2,606 theaters, against a reported $30 million production cost. TheWrap noted its debut was less than a third of the opening weekend of The Social Network. The film comes from Sony, Columbia and Alcon.

Resident Evil took third place with $8.4 million, lifting its domestic total to $138.5 million. Paramount's Heart of the Beast followed in fourth with $7.1 million.

The overall weekend haul was estimated at $85.1 million, according to Rentrak, which is about 24% above the $71 million posted on the same weekend last year, when Tron: Ares led the chart. The 2026 domestic box office also crossed $8 billion on Friday, up roughly 19.6% from last year and about 8% behind 2019.

Other Mommy is the latest example of how profitable low-budget horror can be in 2026, even when critics and audiences are unimpressed. Strong first-weekend returns, driven by young fans who turn out on opening day, can outweigh poor word of mouth on a $19 million budget. For the industry, the weekend also shows how quickly films with weak audience scores lose momentum, as Verity and Digger both discovered.

Blumhouse has already announced Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch projects for 2027, signalling that the studio plans to keep leaning on horror. The next test for Other Mommy is its second weekend, when trade analysts expect a sharp decline.