‘Other Mommy’ Opens to $27.5 Million at Box Office Amidst Poor Reviews

Universal/Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s “Other Mommy” is leading the box office with a $27.5 million opening on a mid-October weekend where it is the only film making more than $12 million while Sony/Columbia/Alcon’s “The Social Reckoning” is making less than a third of the opening weekend of its famed predecessor, “The Social Network.” Made on a $19 million budget, “Other Mommy” stars Jessica Chastain as a mom who discovers that there is a vicious doppelganger of herself that is haunting her daughter. The film should be able to clear its low break-even point theatrically as it has also grossed $17.6 million overseas from 50 markets for a $45 million global start. But “Other Mommy” has been saddled with poor critical and audience reception including a D+ on CinemaScore, the lowest grade recorded by the audience poll since Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” two years ago. Weak audience scores have been followed by steep box office drops, as is the case this weekend with Warner Bros./Legendary’s “Digger” and Amazon MGM’s “Verity,” which both got C+ CinemaScores and are seeing 64% second weekend drops in this frame. Along with the bad reviews, “Other Mommy” will face plenty of Halloween horror competition in the weeks ahead from films like the strong holdover “Resident Evil” and the upcoming DC Studios “Batman” villain title “Clayface.” Meanwhile, “The Social Reckoning” is DOA with just $5.5 million grossed domestically this weekend, putting it at No. 5 on the box office charts just ahead of the third weekend of Universal/DreamWorks’ animated flop “Forgotten Island” with $4.5 million. By comparison, Aaron Sorkin’s previous film about Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, “The Social Network,” opened to $22.6 million in the fall of 2010. As seen with “Digger” last week, it has been a heavy lift for studios to sell audiences on films about current events or tough issues like climate change or social media misinformation, and the mixed reception for “The Social Reckoning” isn’t helping with a B- on CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 56% critics and 73% audience. Fortunately for Sony, the film has a reported net budget of around $30 million with Alcon as co-financier, and the recent success of films like “Resident Evil” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” will easily cover any losses they take on this film. With the weak word-of-mouth hurting the legs of several of this month’s films, theatrical business is slowly declining as this weekend’s overall total is sinking to an estimated $88-90 million, down from last weekend’s $100 million. The good news is that this is still 24% up from the $71 million overall total posted on this weekend a year ago, when Disney’s “Tron: Ares” led the box office with $33 million and no other films earned more than $10 million with the sixth weekend of “The Conjuring: Last Rites” still in the top 5. It’s an example of how having more films in theaters, something exhibitors have demanded for years, can reduce the damage during box office slowdowns. More to come…