Other Mommy Box Office Surprises Despite Bad Reviews

The Other Mommy box office run is shaping up as the horror upset of the fall: Jessica Chastain's creepy double-mom thriller pulled in $3.6 million in Thursday previews, beating the openers of Black Phone 2, Smile and M3GAN, even though critics have mostly hated it.

That is a big deal for a movie with a reported $19 million budget. Previews are the first read on how much fans actually want to show up, and Universal's October release just posted a number that horror producers dream about, according to Comic Basics.

What Other Mommy is actually about

The R-rated film is a Blumhouse and Atomic Monster production directed by Rob Savage, the filmmaker behind Host and The Boogeyman. It adapts Josh Malerman's 2024 novel Incidents Around the House. Eight-year-old Bela is dealing with her parents' marriage problems when a sinister entity that looks and sounds exactly like her mother starts wrecking her life.

Bela nicknames the thing Other Mommy. Chastain plays both the real mother, Ursula, and the creepy double, which is the hook the whole marketing campaign leaned on. The cast also includes Arabella Olivia Clark, Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman and Arian Moayed, and the film runs about 1 hour and 33 minutes. The studio has seen strong interest since its startling trailer ran ahead of The Odyssey this summer, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The numbers that have trade watchers talking

Thursday previews of $3.6 million put Other Mommy ahead of a long list of recent genre hits at the same stage. For comparison, Black Phone 2 made $2.6 million, Smile made $2 million, Trap made $2.2 million, Evil Dead Rise made $2.5 million and M3GAN made $2.8 million. It also topped The Exorcist: Believer at $2.9 million, Longlegs at $3 million and the original The Black Phone at $3 million, per Comic Basics.

Weekend projections have been moving up. Universal's own projection was about $20 million, while The Hollywood Reporter noted the studio launching in around 3,200 North American locations. Other estimates range from $22 million to $29 million, and one tracker went as high as $28.5 million to $35 million. Gold Derby's weekend chart had it at roughly $21 million, ahead of Verity at $15 million, The Social Reckoning at $8 million and Resident Evil at $7 million.

Critics hate it, fans might not care

Here is the twist: the reviews are rough. Other Mommy sits at 20% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 20 reviews, with critics calling it flat, short on tension and heavy on repetitive jump scares. The Hollywood Reporter's Richard Lawson wrote that the movie is "an attractive but mostly vacuous collection of jumpy bits and half-baked mythology."

Almost every review still praised Chastain's double performance. Letterboxd audience scores average about 3.19 out of 5, a split between critics and fans that horror films often exploit. Normally previews at this level would point to an opening above $30 million, but the bad reviews make $25 million to $30 million look more realistic. Even that would be a standout Blumhouse start.

The Social Reckoning gets lapped

The other newcomer is Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning, the follow-up to 2010's The Social Network, starring Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg. Sony projected around $7 million from roughly 2,200 theaters. The Hollywood Reporter quoted box office analyst David A. Gross saying tech stories are "not very cinematic" and may fit streaming better.

The Social Network opened to $22.4 million on Oct. 1, 2010, and went on to win three Oscars. This sequel carries a modest $30 million budget and a 60 percent critics score, which explains why it is playing second fiddle to a haunted closet.

What to watch this weekend

The real test is week two. Horror often drops hard when word of mouth sours, but strong previews plus a packed Halloween season give Other Mommy room to run. Competition is thick, with Verity holding in the top three after a $32.6 million debut, plus Resident Evil and Clayface chasing the same scare crowd. If the film holds on to even a modest share of its audience, it becomes a profitable hit despite the reviews. Follow more movie news and culture coverage on GenZ NewZ as the weekend numbers land.