Industry estimates released Sunday placed the horror film Other Mommy — a Universal and Blumhouse production featuring Academy Award recipient Jessica Chastain in a dual performance as both a mother and a malevolent entity that preys on a child — at the top of the North American weekend box office, with opening receipts of $27.5 million, while The Social Reckoning, positioned as an awards contender, drew a modest debut.
Franchise Entertainment Research analyst David A. Gross observed that the film came through the weekend despite mixed reviews and a restrained audience reaction, though he noted attendance numbers would likely decline in the weeks ahead. Gross pointed to the concept of a threatening, spirit-inhabited mother portrayed by Jessica Chastain as having drawn audiences and gained traction overseas before word-of-mouth had time to turn against it.
Verity, the Amazon MGM psychological thriller drawn from Colleen Hoover's novel, dropped one position to second place, posting a weekend total of $11.5 million, according to Exhibitor Relations. The production features Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson in its lead roles.
Rounding out the top three, the Resident Evil release from Sony pulled in $8.4 million over the weekend, lifting its cumulative North American haul to $138.5 million. An additional $181 million flowed in from international markets.
The Paramount release Heart of the Beast — with Brad Pitt portraying a veteran and his war-scarred canine companion navigating life in the Alaskan wilderness — took fourth place at the box office, drawing $7.1 million.
Debuting at number five on the weekend box office chart with a gross of $5.5 million, The Social Reckoning — Aaron Sorkin's follow-up to his 2010 film The Social Network, which traced the founding of Mark Zuckerberg's social media platform — cast Oscar-winning Mikey Madison as Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee whose handover of internal company documents to a journalist, portrayed by Jeremy Allen White, brought the platform's internal practices into public view. In the series adaptation, Jeremy Strong steps into the Zuckerberg role that Jesse Eisenberg originated on screen, with the broader shift toward television reflecting how narratives around corporate power, wealth, and internal conflict have established a presence in the medium.
Gross argued that the productions lack what typically draws audiences into cinemas — an emotional resonance, a sense of visual scale, and the kind of imaginative transport that storytelling on a large screen tends to offer.
Positions six through ten on the chart belonged to Forgotten Island at $4.5 million, Primetime at $4 million, Digger at $3.2 million, Angel and the Badman at $2.1 million, and The Odyssey at $2 million.