Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning” landed with a thud at the box office this weekend, grossing just $5.5 million domestically and garnering mixed-negative reviews from critics and audiences alike — it sits at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes and pulled a B- CinemaScore from the opening weekend crowd.
A decade and a half ago, the Sorkin-penned and David Fincher-directed “The Social Network” opened to $22 million and rave reviews, winning Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing and Best Score and going on to be hailed by critics and film scholars as one of the defining films of the 21st century.
So what gives?
The lackluster performance of “The Social Reckoning” — which features Zuckerberg but is largely about a Wall Street Journal reporter’s investigation into the harmful effects of Meta’s algorithm and products — is in keeping with a post-COVID trend of audiences rejecting movies that are explicitly about the troubling times we live in. The film was marketed as an “All the President’s Men”-style thriller about exposing how bad Facebook is for our society, while “The Social Network” was marketed as a high-stakes, dark-edged origin story about how some college kids changed the world.
So that’s Problem No. 1. Audiences are not showing up for these kinds of movies in the theater right now.
Fincher did not return to direct “The Social Reckoning,” and the quality of the film doesn’t hold a candle to the 2010 movie.
By Sorkin’s admission, he was his own “second choice” to direct the film, but Fincher is in an exclusive deal with Netflix (although he read and praised the script). Jesse Eisenberg also declined to reprise his role as Zuckerberg, leading to a recasting with Jeremy Strong, who plays the mogul as a dark and joyless villain.
Sorkin is one of the most acclaimed writers in modern history — “The West Wing!” “A Few Good Men!” “The American President!” Classics, the lot of them — but when he directs his own material, the results are more mixed. His 2017 directorial debut “Molly’s Game” grossed just $59 million worldwide, and his next two features, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “Being the Ricardos,” debuted on streaming. “Chicago 7” got several Oscar noms, but “Ricardos” had a shakier reception.
While the $5.5 million start for “The Social Reckoning” is a disappointment, Sony will be fine. The budget for the Alcon co-production was kept to $30 million, and this feels like the kind of movie that performs on PVOD. At the very least, it’ll likely get a nice bump when it hits Netflix.
The larger problem looms for other issue-based films on the horizon. First up there’s Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk documentary “Musk,” which Bleecker Street will release in theaters this weekend, although few expect a four-hour doc to blow up the box office.
Perhaps most intriguing is Neon’s “Artificial,” which debuted to rave reviews at the New York Film Festival as Luca Guadagnino directs the story of Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Andrew Garfield’s performance as the CEO has already been praised as deviously villainous, and Guadagnino’s film — which was dropped by Amazon — has garnered positive comparisons to “The Social Network” for its biting chronicle of a turning point in the ChatGPT-maker’s history.
Will audiences continue to ignore stories that hit too close to home, or will Garfield’s Oscar-buzzing performance be too good to pass up? We’ll find out when Neon releases the film in theaters in December.
Now, on to the rest of this week’s Reel to Real as we tackle “Other Mommy” winning the box office, Ben Affleck’s thoughts on AI in filmmaking and more.
Box Office: ‘Other Mommy’ Opens to $27.5 Million at Box Office Amid Poor Reviews
Universal/Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s “Other Mommy” is leading the box office with a $27.5 million opening on a mid-October weekend where it is the only film making more than $12 million, while Sony/Columbia/Alcon’s “The Social Reckoning” is making less than a third of the opening weekend of its famed predecessor, “The Social Network.”
Made on a $19 million budget, “Other Mommy” stars Jessica Chastain as a mom who discovers that there is a vicious doppelganger of herself who is haunting her daughter. The film should be able to clear its low break-even point theatrically, as it has also grossed $17.6 million overseas from 50 markets for a $45 million global start.
But “Other Mommy” has been saddled with poor critical and audience reception, including a D+ on CinemaScore, the lowest grade recorded by the audience poll since Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” two years ago.
Weak audience scores have been followed by steep box office drops, as is the case this weekend with Warner Bros./Legendary’s “Digger” and Amazon MGM’s “Verity,” which both got C+ CinemaScores and are seeing 60+% second weekend drops in this frame. Along with the bad reviews, “Other Mommy” will face plenty of Halloween horror competition in the weeks ahead from films like the strong holdover “Resident Evil” and the upcoming DC Studios “Batman” villain title “Clayface.”
With the weak word-of-mouth hurting the legs of several of this month’s films, and Hurricane Isaias keeping moviegoers in the Southeast U.S. out of theaters on Friday and Saturday, theatrical business is slowly declining as this weekend’s overall total is sinking to an estimated $88-90 million, down from last weekend’s $100 million.
The good news is that this is still 24% up from the $71 million overall total posted on this weekend a year ago, when Disney’s “Tron: Ares” led the box office with $33 million and no other films earned more than $10 million, with the sixth weekend of “The Conjuring: Last Rites” still in the top 5.
It’s an example of how having more films in theaters, something exhibitors have demanded for years, can reduce the damage during box office slowdowns.
– Jeremy Fuster
The Spotlight
Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Digger” will go down in history as one of the biggest box office bombs ever. By how much? As Sharon Waxman exclusively reports, the Tom Cruise/Alejandro G. Iñárritu comedy will end up losing $250 million when all is said and done. So whose fault is it? Read the full story here to get all the details.
New Releases
Ben Affleck, Director: I spoke to Ben Affleck about his new Netflix movie “Animals,” using AI, streaming vs. theatrical and his directorial philosophy.
What Happened to Row K?: Inside the implosion of the indie distributor.
Inside Screen Gems’ Pivot to YouTubers: Screen Gems poached YouTube exec Fede Goldenberg to turn its focus to creator-driven films. Kayla Cobb has the inside details on this big pivot.
Michael Douglas Tells All: Drew Taylor spoke with Michael Douglas for an hour about his explosive new memoir, from running drugs to his rocky relationship with father Kirk.
Letterboxd’s New Suitor: We’ve got the exclusive on Letterboxd’s new suitor, and why everyone is so hot to buy the social media platform.
“NAZA” Box Office: The controversial doc “NAZA,” about Israel’s actions in Gaza, grossed $500,000 on opening weekend without a distributor.
Concession Stand
A good year for animation? Our reviews for Laika’s “Wildwood” and Brad Bird’s “Ray Gunn” are raves.
Paramount is reviving “Transformers” with Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.
Nathan Fielder still doesn’t quite understand his Elizabeth Holmes doc “You Can See Everything.”
Mike Flanagan’s “The Exorcist: Martyrs” trailer is excellent.
Xbox is ramping up its film and TV adaptation efforts.
“Wicker,” the movie starring Alexander Skarsgård as a sexy wicker man, is being released in 4DX thanks to fan demand. Black Bear is playing this marketing perfectly.
After the “Digger” flameout, “The Odyssey” is coming back to IMAX sooner than expected.
Streaming Corner
- After the smashing success of “Barbie” in 2023, Mattel was to have a big 2026 with its next two adaptations, “Masters of the Universe” and “Matchbox: The Movie.” The former was released in theaters by Amazon this summer and bombed with $114 million worldwide, and “Matchbox” — an action comedy starring John Cena — was released direct-to-streaming on Apple TV this past weekend with little fanfare beyond a few late night TV appearances for Cena. Perhaps the scathing reviews (it’s at 22% on Rotten Tomatoes) had something to do with the lessened marketing.
What I’m Watching
With “The Housemaid” now streaming on HBO Max, my wife and I decided to give Paul Feig’s hit Lionsgate thriller a spin. It’s a soapy, silly yarn packed with more twists than a season of “Lost,” but Feig keeps this thing running at a clip so you’re never thinking too hard about whether it all makes sense. What does make sense is how quickly Lionsgate reassembled the team to get a sequel in theaters by next year. Impressive!
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