Box Office Report for the Week of October 11

It’s another slow weekend at the box office, as the week’s two big releases aren’t gelling with audiences. One obvious winner, though, is Rob Savage‘s Other Mommy. Despite dismal reviews, the movie already doubled its $19 million budget in one weekend, opening domestically with $27.5 million and globally with $44.2 million.

This is a big win for both Universal and Blumhouse, as the studio deliberately chose not to screen the movie anywhere for the press before release, which likely kept negative word-of-mouth from spreading when it opened. The damage is probably done, and the film will likely crater next weekend, as it currently sits at a dire 18% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it’s another testament to how reliable horror has been as a genre for cinema exhibitors, especially in recent memory.

The second big release is Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning, and this $40 million production didn’t fare well on the big screen. Receiving mixed reviews, the sequel to The Social Network arrived far too late to make an impact and opened in fifth place with a disappointing $5.5 million domestically and $9 million globally.

The one silver lining for Sorkin is that his bomb isn’t as massive as Alejandro G. Iñárritu‘s Digger, which has dropped precipitously at 60% and is set to be one of the biggest box-office failures of all time. Despite Warner Bros. trying to lean into the film’s divisive response by using pull quotes from both positive and negative reviews, audiences aren’t biting on this audacious swing and are rejecting it outright. It might be the film that kills Skydance’s desire for risk-taking, especially as it’s now saddled with $80 billion in debt and has to make the combined company work very quickly.

Time will tell what the studio’s plans are for Warner Bros., but don’t be surprised if we never see auteur-driven swings like this one again. They still have a few they are contractually obligated to release, so we should enjoy (and cherish) them while they last.

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. Other Mommy (Universal): $27.5M – 3,365 theatres
2. Verity (Amazon MGM Studios): $11.4M (-64%) – 3,572 theatres
3. Resident Evil (Sony): $8.3M (-34%) – 3,085 theatres
4. Heart of the Beast (Paramount): $7.1M (-35%) – 3,365 theatres
5. The Social Reckoning (Sony): $5.5M – 2,606 theatres
6. Forgotten Island (Universal): $4.5M (-38%) – 2,898 theatres
7. Primetime (A24): $4.0M (-48%) – 2,269 theatres
8. Digger (Warner Bros): $3.2M (-60%) – 3,321 theatres
9. Angel and the Badman (Angel Studios): $2.0M – 2,263 theatres
10. The Odyssey (Universal): $2.0M (+54%) – 560 theatres

Source: Comscore