Social Reckoning Box Office: Sorkin Faces Horror Rival

The Social Reckoning box office story this weekend is a clash between a prestige sequel and a creepy-closet horror flick, and the horror movie is winning before anyone buys a ticket. Aaron Sorkin's follow-up to The Social Network opens Friday, Oct. 9, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, it is expected to lose the top spot to Universal's Other Mommy.

Sony is releasing The Social Reckoning in 2,200 North American theaters and projecting an opening of around $7 million. The film carries a modest $30 million budget. Sorkin wrote and directed it, and the cast includes Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg.

Other Mommy is the favorite

Universal is putting Other Mommy into 3,200 locations and projecting a $20 million opening, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. The horror movie stars Jessica Chastain and was directed by Rob Savage. It cost $19 million to make and follows a sinister entity that shows up in a young girl's closet.

The buzz started early. The studio has seen promising interest since the startling trailer debuted ahead of The Odyssey in theaters over the summer. Halloween season is also charging ahead, which never hurts a scary movie. Critics are lukewarm, though. THR critic Richard Lawson called it "an attractive but mostly vacuous collection of jumpy bits and half-baked mythology."

Why Sorkin's sequel faces a harder road

The original is a legend. The Social Network opened Oct. 1, 2010, hit No. 1 with $22.4 million and then held the top spot in its second weekend with a drop of just 31 percent. It made $224 million globally and won three Academy Awards. None of its cast returns for the sequel, and David Fincher is replaced by Sorkin in the director's chair.

The new film is described as a fact-based thriller about a Facebook staffer, played by Madison, who teams up with a journalist, played by White, to expose concerning truths about the company led by Zuckerberg. Reviews are mixed. It sits at 60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, although THR's chief film critic David Rooney called it an "engrossing whistleblower thriller."

TheWrap was less kind. Its review headline says the sequel "Isn't Worth Sharing." Meanwhile, according to TheWrap, Sorkin told Morning Joe that everyone should be concerned about Meta's power and said, "This isn't a fake problem."

The tech movie problem

THR points out that comparable adult dramas have opened in the same range. Last year's Caught Stealing earned $7.8 million and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere earned $8.8 million, and both underperformed. More tech-focused films are on the way, including the Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything and Luca Guadagnino's OpenAI movie Artificial. A documentary on Elon Musk, simply titled Musk, opens in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

Box office analyst David A. Gross, who runs the FranchiseRe newsletter, told THR: "They're not very cinematic." He said these stories are about corporate power, control and money, and that they seem to have a better home on streaming than on the big screen. Even when they are well made, he said, they lack the visual or emotional experience that works theatrically.

The holdovers still matter

Last weekend's winner is back too. Amazon MGM's Verity, with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, opened to $32 million despite a C+ CinemaScore and a 33 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Its opening audience skewed 78 percent female, and it now competes with Other Mommy for the same crowd looking for thrills.

Tom Cruise's Digger is the cautionary tale. THR says its opening was far behind Verity's, and TheWrap's Sharon Waxman reports in a column headline that the film will lose $250 million. Limited releases this weekend also include Chris Rock's Misty Green, the biographical drama Tenzing, Sebastian Stan's Fjord and the action comedy Double Trouble.

What to watch for

The real test is the second weekend. The Social Network proved that word of mouth can carry a smart drama, and the sequel will need that kind of legs to recover from a soft start. Other Mommy, by contrast, will probably face a steeper drop if audiences agree with critics, since horror tends to be front-loaded.

For now, the numbers to track are $20 million for Other Mommy and $7 million for The Social Reckoning. If Sorkin beats his projection, it is a sign that audiences still want grown-up stories about tech. If he lands under it, studios will keep sending these films straight to streaming. Check back Sunday when the actuals land. Want more entertainment coverage? Browse our movies and culture sections.