For the second weekend in a row, the major new releases at the box office are suffering from lackluster reception, causing overall estimates to slip below $90 million.
Universal/Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s “Other Mommy” is No. 1 this weekend, but critics and audiences alike are giving it poor marks even as it earned a $13 million opening day from 3,365 screens. Not only does it have a 20% critics and 47% audience Rotten Tomatoes score, but it has earned a D+ on CinemaScore.
That is the lowest grade CinemaScore has recorded for a film since the D+ handed by audiences to Francis Ford Coppola’s ill-fated “Megalopolis” in September 2024.
Produced on a $19 million budget, “Other Mommy” is currently estimated for a $28 million opening and should clear its break-even mark by the end of its theatrical run, but such poor reception is likely to take out the film’s legs and could affect even Saturday and Sunday turnout. Don’t be surprised if the Monday actual total for this film is closer to $20 million.
But that would still be far better than what Sony/Columbia/Alcon’s “The Social Reckoning” is earning with $2.1 million from 2,606 locations on Friday for an opening weekend of just $6 million. That’s less than a third of the $22.4 million that its Oscar-winning predecessor, “The Social Network,” earned in the fall of 2010 before inflation adjustment.
“The Social Reckoning” carries a far lower budget than last weekend’s bomb “Digger” with a net production spend of $30 million co-financed by Alcon. And with the box office windfall “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” brought to the box office, Sony is certainly able to take any financial hit this movie about the 2021 investigation into Facebook’s role in the Jan. 6 riots may bring.
But “Digger” and “Social Reckoning,” though different in many ways, both demonstrate how difficult it is in this day and age to get a wide moviegoing audience to show up to movies that tackle current events and political issues, joining wide releases like the 2022 Harvey Weinstein journalism drama “She Said” among the films take on our turbulent present and which audiences have ignored.
Speaking of “Digger,” Tom Cruise and Alejandro G. Inarritu’s bleak satire is headed for a second weekend of just $3 million and a 10-day domestic total of $14 million, continuing its descent into becoming one of the worst box office bombs of all time.
Last weekend’s No. 1 film, Amazon MGM’s “Verity,” has fallen 61% to $12.5 million, bringing the $40 million Colleen Hoover adaptation’s 10-day total to $54.8 million.
And farther down the charts, Angel’s “Angel and the Badman” is opening to just $2.4 million from 2,263 locations. The western starring Tommy Lee Jones and Zachary Levi has a 23% Rotten Tomatoes critics score and a B+ on CinemaScore.
