Weekend Box Office: Other Mommy Scares Up an Impressive Debut
The Jessica Chastain horror film didn't wow critics, but enough curious moviegoers turned up to give it the fourth-best horror opening of the year.
There are much worse movies to not screen for critics than Other Mommy. Universal may have done the film a disservice in planting the seed of disaster into their minds, because between that and Rob Savage’s promise of “50 jump scares,” some reviews just write themselves. As a critic myself, to say I disagree with the response to the film is an understatement, but audiences were still enamored with the promise of the trailers that began playing in front of The Odyssey to make it the true social reckoning of the weekend.
King of the Crop: Other Mommy Scares Up an Impressive Debut
After breaking through with his pandemic at-home horror sensation Host and his lesser-seen Dashcam, Rob Savage went on the direct the Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman in 2023. It opened to $12.3 million that summer and finished with over $43 million. Savage now teams up with James Wan’s Atomic Monster productions for Blumhouse to deliver Other Mommy. Despite Universal’s reluctance to screen the film in advance for press, audiences were clearly taken enough with the spooky trailers to serve up $27.5 million in sales this weekend. That’s the fourth-best horror opening of the year after Backrooms ($81.4 million), Scream 7 ($63.6 million), and Resident Evil ($60.1 million). Unfortunately, there are too many Halloween, Paranormal Activity and Saw films to crack October’s all-time horror top 10:
Five Night at Freddy’s – $80.00 million
Halloween (2018) – $76.2 million
Paranormal Activity 2 – $52.5 million
Halloween Kills – $49.4 million
Paranormal Activity 2 – $40.67 million
Halloween Ends – $40.05 million
The Grudge (2004) – $39.1 million
Annabelle – $37.1 million
Saw III – $33.6 million
Saw IV – $31.75 million
Accentuating how frontloaded this month’s genre offerings can be, seven of the top 13 films in this category could not even double their opening weekends by their final gross. Happy Death Day, Paranormal Activity 4, and Saw V did not even reach $60 million after all opening over $26 million. Critics who did catch up on Other Mommy were not as kind to it, as only 19% expressed approval. I think they are very wrong, and a portion of the public certainly agreed.
One thing of note is that this is the highest opening weekend ever for a film that received a D+ from those polled at Cinemascore. The previous highs were Alexander ($13.68 million), Hereditary ($13.57 million), Jaws 3-D ($13.42 million), and Battlefield Earth ($11.54 million). Ari Aster’s Hereditary is Certified Fresh at 90% with critics, by the way. Other positive D+ films on the Tomatometer include Haywire, Closer, Men, She’s So Lovely, Die My Love, Videodrome, Punch-Drunk Love, and The New World. So audiences can get it wrong sometimes too. Whatever word of mouth is like through Halloween month, the $19 million production is already headed well into profit territory with $45 million globally.
Tales of the Top 10: Verity Falls to a Respectable No. 2, The Social Reckoning Flops
The latest addition to the Hooverse finished its second weekend dropping 64.5% with $14.2 million. Michael Showalter’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Verity with Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson now has $53.8 million after 10 days. The numbers are well behind October openers Annabelle ($15.8 million second weekend, $61.6 million 10-day total) and Blade Runner 2049 ($15.4 million, $60.9 million). We can put an early estimate between $72-82 million, close to doubling its production budget without even factoring in the additional $60 million it has made globally so far.
Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil continues to do very well. Here it is in weekend four, still in third place, and grossing $8.2 million. The film has now accrued $138.4 million, which is among the top 15 for a horror film through 24 days, just behind The Sixth Sense ($138.8 million) right now. Not much has changed otherwise, as it is still headed to land between $150-155 million. Globally the film has now surpassed $320 million. Depending on your genre classifications, Resident Evil now joins, give or take, only 17 other horror films since 1995 to gross as much around the world. (Shoutouts to Jaws and The Exorcist.)
Four films entered the top 10 three weeks ago and only three of them remain. (Avengers: Endgame – Encore fell off this week.) Brad Pitt in Heart of the Beast continues to be the biggest draw, though someone is losing dough somewhere on the $85 million production. Another $6.9 million in weekend three brings its 17-day total to $49.5 million. The numbers are similar to another September Dad film, Deepwater Horizon, which had a $6.4 million third weekend with $49.3 million in the bank. Heart of the Beast is still on track for a finish just over $60 million domestic. Worldwide it has made over $131 million.
David Fincher’s The Social Network opened to $22.4 million on Oct. 1, 2010. The film went on to gross nearly $97 million and won Aaron Sorkin an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Sorkin now returns to the world of Mark Zuckerberg, this time in the director’s chair, with The Social Reckoning. His not-a-sequel is just his second theatrical release as a director after Molly’s Game in 2017 (The Trial of the Chicago 10 and Being the Ricardos premiered on Netflix and Amazon, respectively), and it has not resonated as well with audiences or critics. The former spent just $5.5 million on the film this weekend and the latter came in at just 54% on the Tomatometer compared to the 96% of Fincher’s film. Last year’s Jeremy Allen White October headliner, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, opened to $8.8 million. Mikey Madison’s Oscar-winning turn in Anora finished its run with $15.6 million, which Reckoning may not even reach.
The numbers for Universal and Dreamworks’ Forgotten Island look sadder each week. Audiences really missed the boat on this one, as the film from the creators of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish made just $4.5 million in its third weekend. That brings its total to just $30.2 million in 17 days and puts it alongside The Angry Birds Movie 2 and pandemic opener Paw Patrol: The Movie, which had $4.2 and $4 million, respectively, in their third weekends and 17-day totals of $29.7 million and $30.3 million. Both of them got just a bit over $40 million. Forgotten Island has only just hit $50 million worldwide.
On the eve of a second Lance Oppenheim film coming out next week about exposing a corporate predator, his feature on Chris Hansen, Primetime, made $4 million in its third weekend. That gives the A24 release $41.4 million in 17 days and puts it among their top 10 domestic grossers ever. Last year’s release of Celine Song’s Materialists now falls from that list to make room for another hit. Primetime actually has the fourth-best 17-day total in their history and is still ahead of The Drama’s $39.6 million. It appears headed to pass $50 million and get into the top five.
Alejandro G. Inarritu’s Digger may have its defenders, but it fell 60% in its second week to just $3.2 million. The last film featuring Cruise to fall this quickly was Rock of Ages, which dropped to $2.84 million… in its third weekend. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, The Mummy, and American Made were all between $3-4 million in their fourth weekends, and yet all of those films were still successful due to stronger international numbers on top of smaller budgets. All the Right Moves and Legend are the only Tom Cruise films to finish with less than $20 million (and those are un-inflated numbers). That’s where Digger is headed, though. WB’s Practical Magic 2 dropped out of the top 10 with $1.3 million. The $75 million production now stands at $67.2 million and $103.2 million globally. Digger has made just $35.3 million worldwide.
Zachary Levi was just in theaters last month with Liam Neeson in The Fix, which has grossed just $1.18 million to date. He is now back this weekend stepping into the shoes of John Wayne, who starred as Quirt Evans back in 1947. Now, nearly 80 years later (and 17 after Lou Diamond Phillips played Quirt in a Hallmark Channel version), Levi takes on the role in the theatrical remake of Angel and the Badman from Angel Studios. It has already beaten The Fix by making $2.06 million this weekend. Surely, Neil McDonough holding up the audience at gunpoint at the end to pay it forward will help sell a few tickets.
Well hello, old friend. Odysseus indeed returned to the top 10 this week. After reclaiming a number of IMAX venues, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey grossed another $2 million to bring its domestic total to just shy of $623 million. It is less than half a million away from passing Marvel’s The Avengers for 14th all time on the domestic first-run chart. Globally it now stands at $1.779 billion.
Beyond the Top 10: Spider-Man: Brand New Day Finally Drops Out
Spider-Man: Brand New Day may not be in the top 10 any more, but it continued to draw in fans with $1.5 million this weekend. That brings its all-time leading domestic total to $956.8 million and global total to $2.513 billion. Avengers Endgame: Encore was still in theaters, making $1.4 million this weekend. That brings the re-issue release over $39 million domestic and nearly $138 million worldwide. Also in re-release news, Fathom Entertainment had the 20th Anniversary of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth in 1,168 theaters, and it made $1.66 million. Fox/Disney tried to capitalize on the passing of Dolly Parton and put 9 to 5 back into 1,275 theaters, where it grossed just $150,000.
Neon’s release of Alex Gibney’s four-hour (including 10-minute intermission) documentary Musk grossed an estimated $68,900 in just four theaters this weekend. Over the years, four-hour releases (or 225+ minute films) have included Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time In America ($5.32 million), Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet ($4.7 million), and Gettysburg ($10.7 million). More recently we have seen Quentin Tarantino’s recut Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair ($6.00 million), along with Indian epic Baahubali: The Epic ($1.01 million) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge ($28.1 million). Neon also released Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord with Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve. It made $124,000 in four theaters.
Finally, Chris Rock’s new directorial effort, Misty Green, is not exactly wowing critics, just on the Rotten side with 59% on the Tomatometer. The A24 released made $85,000 in six theaters and may fade away quickly after an expansion next week.
On The Vine: October Ramps Up with Whalefall, Street Fighter, and More
Theaters will be loaded next week as Austin Abrams goes from outrunning zombies to being swallowed by a big mammal in Whalefall from 20th Century Studios. Paramount is taking a new stab at the Street Fighter video game, and Focus has done a new version of Sense and Sensibility. Watch out for spiders in Crawlers from Roadside, and Nathan Fielder has to stay on his toes with Elizabeth Holmes in the A24 documentary You Can See Everything. Finally, Warner Bros. may have failed with Digger, but they are going all in on a wide release of a 4K restoration of Ken Russell’s The Devils. See all the upcoming releases here.
Full List of Box Office Results: October 9-11
- Other Mommy – $27.5 million ($27.5 million total)
- Verity – $11.4 million ($53.8 million total)
- Resident Evil – $8.3 million ($138.5 million total)
- Heart of the Beast – $7.1 million ($49.6 million total)
- The Social Reckoning – $5.5 million ($5.5 million total)
- Forgotten Island – $4.5 million ($30.2 million total)
- Primetime – $4.0 million ($41.4 million total)
- Digger – $3.2 million ($14.0 million total)
- Angel and the Badman – $2.06 million ($2.06 million total)
- The Odyssey – $2.0 million ($622.9 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by ©Universal Pictures
