Before I tackle “Other Mommy,” I should mention that Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” is DOA. Not only is this “The Social Network” spiritual sequel at 59% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s also looking at a $4M–5M weekend after taking in only around $600K from Thursday previews. The budget was $40M.
The numbers still haven’t come in for “Digger,” but it made $8M last weekend, and if its $700K Wednesday is any indication, it’s looking at about half that this weekend. It’ll probably be fighting ‘Social Reckoning’ for #5.
As for the other wide release, “Other Mommy,” Universal’s marketing kind of worked. The horror film pulled in more than $3.5M from Thursday previews, and pre-sales are strong enough that a $30M+ opening weekend might happen.
The bad news?
As I wrote yesterday, Universal never screened Rob Savage’s film for US press. Now that the floodgates are open, the film sits at a dismal 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. Early audience reception isn’t much kinder. Don’t be shocked if it drops 70% in its second weekend.
Universal can thank its lucky stars that the trailer went viral this summer, largely because the studio attached it to Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” The image of Jessica Chastain contorted under a kitchen counter did the rest. It’s the same trick the studio pulled in 2023 when it put “The Exorcist: Believer” in front of “Oppenheimer.”
“Other Mommy” has a budget of just $19M. Even if it craters next weekend and limps to, say, a $60M domestic total, Universal and Blumhouse/Atomic Monster will make money on this one. That’s the beauty of cheap horror: bad reviews rarely matter when the budget is this low and the opening is front-loaded.
For the uninitiated, the film adapts Josh Malerman’s novel “Incidents Around the House” and stars Chastain in a dual role, as an 8-year-old girl’s mother and as the closet-dwelling entity that wears her face. Savage bragged about packing in roughly 50 jump scares. We're still waiting on audience scores, but as I mentioned, early pulls suggest they won't be good.
We're about seven weeks out, and there's been barely any buzz. The rollout has been weak, especially for a movie built around Tarantino, Fincher, and Pitt.