The Jessica Chastain horror film "Other Mommy" led the North American box office this weekend, earning an estimated $27.5 million from 3,365 theaters. The Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Atomic Monster production features a supernatural entity that impersonates a young girl's mother. While the film exceeded opening projections, it received a "D+" CinemaScore from opening-night audiences and currently holds a 19% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
The weekend's other major new release, "The Social Reckoning," debuted in fifth place with $5.5 million from 2,606 theaters. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, the Sony Pictures film stars Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White in a dramatization of a Facebook whistleblower leaking internal documents to a reporter. The opening fell short of studio projections that had anticipated $7 million to $8 million in ticket sales.
Several holdover films outperformed the new Sorkin drama. The psychological thriller "Verity," starring Anne Hathaway, took second place with $11.5 million, followed by the "Resident Evil" reboot in third with $8.4 million and the survival film "Heart of the Beast" in fourth with $7.1 million. In limited release, the Cannes Palme d'Or winner "Fjord" earned $124,000 on four screens, while the four-hour documentary "Musk" generated $68,900 from four locations.
The demographic data for the weekend shows that "Other Mommy" drew a diverse audience, with Universal reporting an even gender split and two-thirds of ticket buyers falling between the ages of 18 and 34. In contrast, "The Social Reckoning" primarily attracted older male viewers, a group that industry analysts note has been slower to return to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The broader theater industry surpassed the $8 billion domestic box office milestone on Friday, October 9, marking a 19% increase over the previous year. However, total revenue remains approximately 8% behind the levels recorded in 2019. Final domestic figures, which account for the total revenue from Friday through Sunday, are scheduled for release on Monday, October 12, 2026.