The Other Mommy opens at number one as The Social Reckoning and Digger stumble

The Other Mommy opened at number one this weekend, but it's a soft number one, and the real problem at the box office is The Social Reckoning. October 2026 might come in even lower than last year.

October 2026 is now relying on Street Fighter and Clayface

Joker was the movie that got Hollywood to see October differently, as a month where it could launch a big movie. Warner Bros. had hoped to put The Batman Part II in an early October slot. For years they've tried and kept missing it, and this was supposed to be one of the years it happened. When it didn't, they went with Tom Cruise's Oscar play and another DC movie, Clayface, to fill the space.

On paper that seemed like a pretty good idea, but it's not working out so well. We'll see how Clayface does, but Supergirl and the last episode of Lanterns haven't done it any favors. October 2025 was the lowest the month had been in 27 years after Disney's Tron: Ares failed in that spot, and 2026 might come in even lower.

I have my doubts about Clayface at this point, but I had thought that maybe Street Fighter could save the month. Then I found out the press screening is this Wednesday night, at the very last minute, and they still haven't decided when the review embargo or even the social media embargo is. The trailers have looked so good, but that reminds me of The Other Mommy, where Universal used a similar strategy. Universal held that press screening on Thursday night, after the movie had already hit theaters at 2 p.m. that day. It worked, since the movie opened number one, despite some of the worst critic and audience scores we've ever seen. Still, that soft opening would be a horrible one for Street Fighter.

Resident Evil is the franchise's top grosser, but Japan isn't embracing it

Resident Evil is playing in October, but it came out in mid September, so a big chunk of its box office belongs to that month. For the franchise, for 2026 and for horror overall, though, it's definitely becoming a blockbuster. It's now the highest grossing film in the Resident Evil franchise, largely thanks to China, where it made 40 million for its first couple of days. That's one of the most successful horror movies there in quite some time.

Japan is a different story. It kicked off there with a 3.6 million opening weekend. Compare that to Afterlife, now the second highest grossing film in the franchise, which opened in Japan in 2010 to 8.2 million and went on to 55 million there overall. Afterlife didn't do nearly as well as the new one in China, interestingly enough.

Resident Evil is from Japan, and I think that might be the problem. A number of Resident Evil fans said this didn't look like Resident Evil, but most came around. In Japan, where the game comes from, perhaps the audience was less forgiving. Zach Cregger is a big fan, and you can see that love in the film, but it's missing a lot of the iconic elements and characters from the game. I still strongly want him back, and if I were writing him a huge check, I'd ask him to put a couple of game characters into the next one and add a little more sexiness. You don't have to go full Milla Jovovich, but I think that could push these movies into the 500 million and above range.

Right now it looks like this Resident Evil will settle around 400 million. It might not even get there, but it will be close, putting it in league with this year's other horror superstars, Obsession and Backrooms. It's also Cregger's highest grossing film to date. Two of his movies are still awaiting a green light at the new Skydance, where Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein, the heads of film for both Warner Bros. and Paramount, have to decide whether to prioritize him and his relatively new IP, even with Steven Spielberg involved. The company is 80 billion dollars in debt and has a deep bench of IP. So maybe Sony swoops in with a Resident Evil 2 offer. If they don't take him, someone will want him.

I thought The Other Mommy was pretty good until the ending

I saw The Other Mommy last night, and I thought it was actually pretty good for the first two thirds or maybe even three quarters. During the exorcism sequence with the flashing lights, I turned to my friend and said, "This movie is actually really good." She agreed. Then we discovered why everybody disliked it.

It's highly derivative of Coraline, to the point where I think someone maybe should have brought that up. The trailer, while phenomenal, was also very misleading. Jessica Chastain isn't in the movie that much. It focuses mainly on the child actress who plays the daughter and on her dad, played by Jay Duplass, who are both very good, and it's "less a horror movie and more a brutal family therapy session." It's surprisingly well made, with a lot of cool visuals and extremely good VFX for a movie that cost just $19 million, even though you have to pay an Oscar winner like Chastain a couple million dollars.

No spoilers, but the end is the problem. It's such an intense downer that it sticks with you as you leave the theater. The emotion you have at the very end of a film is how you'll feel about it overall, whatever your experience was before, and this movie has a particularly bad ending.

I think Jessica Chastain should move toward supporting roles

Horror doesn't seem to be Chastain's genre. Mama was only a moderate success, and she was in the second It movie because of her relationship with Andy Muschietti from Mama. I tried so hard to get her not to be in that movie because I knew she would hurt it, and that movie underperformed and wasn't as well received. She's an Oscar winner with two other nominations, yet she continues to struggle to get work. I think it doesn't help that her most mainstream projects are awful, which shaped general audiences' impression of her. The last one I'd give her credit for is The Good Nurse, I think, where she did a good job.

She reminds me of Faye Dunaway, whom I like much more, but if I were trying to be impartial I'd maybe put them in the same category. Dunaway also had a moment but couldn't recapture it. I haven't heard anything about Chastain being difficult to work with, but I do think her public persona needs some work.

A number one movie is a number one movie, and if her representation is any good, they should be able to spin this into something. Still, looking at how most of her other projects have done poorly, I'd be very reluctant to hire her, to be honest. I think perhaps the better bet is to give up on the idea that she has to be the star and work on supporting roles in really strong packages. But strong packages are harder to identify than you might think, because everyone thought The Social Reckoning was one.

The Social Reckoning was a bad bet for Mikey Madison and Aaron Sorkin

Winning an Oscar doesn't mean you're set. Mikey Madison has had a very hard time navigating her post Oscar win. She bet big on Aaron Sorkin's sequel, passing up Ryan Gosling and Shawn Levy's Star Wars movie to take this role. We still don't know how Starfighter will turn out. Mia Goth took the role instead, and Disney is so keen on it that they've already signed Gosling and Levy to reteam for Marvel's Ghost Rider. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but considering what a disaster The Social Reckoning is, Starfighter had to have been the better choice, although maybe not, since Star Wars is in a really difficult place right now. Anora came out two years ago, Hollywood moves fast, and fans have moved on to new It girls like Odessa A'zion.

Everyone knows Aaron Sorkin is a great writer but a horrible director, so the fact that they allowed him to direct this is shocking. If David Fincher and Jesse Eisenberg didn't want to return, why make it? The trailer was awful and looked very stilted, like a play in some ways. I haven't gotten a chance to see it, but here's what I wager went wrong. Times have changed since 2010's The Social Network. The tech world is far less mysterious, and audiences can now interact with these individuals. Jeremy Strong's Mark Zuckerberg seems to totally ignore the rebranding that has somewhat worked for the tech billionaire, which I didn't see reflected at all in the trailers. Tech is too much a part of people's lives for them to want to hear how destructive it might be, and nobody wants to be lectured by Hollywood these days.

Luca Guadagnino's Artificial, about AI, seems to be the true successor to The Social Network and hits in December, although it could fall victim to some of the same pitfalls. Even more interesting to me is Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's Elizabeth Holmes documentary, which skips the actress and goes right to the person herself. That could really change the game, and it was Holmes's idea to make it.

Sorkin will always get work as a writer, but I'd be very surprised if he ever directed again, certainly not on a sizable budget. I think he ruined The Social Network's legacy. Jeremy Allen White's movie career is looking pretty bad, and he should look for a new series. Jeremy Strong is his generation's greatest character actor and will always get work, but I think he needs a really good follow up, and I think he has one in Peter Morgan's new Netflix project with Daniel Brühl, which looks very strong to me. With an opening weekend lower than Digger, The Social Reckoning's awards chances are dead on arrival, while The Social Network got eight Oscar nominations and won three. Eisenberg's The Debut is a huge awards front runner, Andrew Garfield co stars in Artificial, and Fincher is doing the new Cliff Booth movie, an IMAX exclusive for Netflix this Thanksgiving. It seems Sorkin went too far back where his colleagues mostly went forward.

Digger dropped 60 percent as The Odyssey reclaimed IMAX screens

There's no reprieve for Digger, despite Tom Cruise posting clips from the film on social media all week, with no context. I think it would benefit him to let his guard down and do an interview where he honestly talks about how some people have embraced it but a lot of people have rejected it. Some vulnerability would help him right now. The movie still dropped 60% in its second weekend and is almost out of the top 10.

As I predicted last week, The Odyssey got a lot of those IMAX screens back before Street Fighter takes them over this coming weekend, and it climbed back into the top 10, up 54%. It's expected to be a huge awards contender and is close to $2 billion worldwide. Cruise has Days of Thunder 2 set, plus the movie where he actually goes into space, although after the Digger stunt backfired, maybe he shouldn't bother. Days of Thunder 2 seems like a solid bet, but F1 casts a very strong shadow, and there's word of a sequel for that too.

Verity is outpacing Practical Magic 2, while Prime Time falls through the cracks

Despite a 64% drop, Verity is pacing ahead of Practical Magic 2 domestically and has already passed it worldwide, even though Practical Magic 2 came out about a month ago. That's a win for everyone involved, including Colleen Hoover, who has plenty more books not yet made into movies. Brad Pitt's The Heart of the Beast and DreamWorks' Forgotten Island are holding up pretty nicely. Neither is making a ton of money, but they're basically advertising campaigns for digital and beyond, where I think they'll do exceptionally well.

Prime Time is more of a meme than a movie. I don't think it'll hurt Robert Pattinson or Lance Oppenheim, who have other strong projects, but style isn't enough. I think Hollywood appreciates the bold swing that doesn't lecture them, which is why they didn't appreciate Digger, and maybe A24 would have been a better home for Digger, although Warner Bros. released One Battle After Another very successfully. Angel Studios' remake of Angel and the Badman with Zachary Levi hasn't connected either, proving their member based focus group doesn't always work. In limited release, Fjord and Misty Green are only okay, while Tony and The Invite lead the year at about 50K per theater averages. I think Misty Green's critic score and some not so great Chris Rock interviews have ended its awards chances. Fjord still has a strong Rotten Tomatoes score, and Sebastian Stan is its strongest hope after The Apprentice and A Different Man.

I'd only renew Lanterns if Kyle Chandler comes back

On Nielsen for late September, there's still no Lanterns on the overall chart, even with its seventh episode. It's still only in the 500 million minute range, which is weird when HBO is calling it one of the top five launches in its history. Nielsen is only domestic, so is global audience making the difference? Did the finale do as much damage as the finales for Game of Thrones and Stranger Things? There's still no word on season two, even though the writers room is already at work, and it's caught up in the Skydance pivot.

It was originally written to be a single season, and they bet on that heavily and lost. I would only renew it if they found a way to bring back Kyle Chandler, and I'd make it very clear he was returning in some way without saying how. Elsewhere on the chart, Toy Story is still very strong, Ryan Murphy has two shows in the top 10, and Wonka's Golden Ticket, Ted Lasso and Lioness continue to do well, alongside Netflix's A Different World sequel, which already has a season two green light. On originals, Reacher has dropped but still charts, as do The Gentlemen and MobLand, where Tom Hardy will return. Movies are very soft after Toy Story 5, and Backrooms finally hitting HBO Max seems to come after everybody already saw it on digital.

East of Eden is a soft number one for Florence Pugh, I think

I love Florence Pugh, but with my business hat on, I don't think she's doing that well. East of Eden is number one on Netflix, but it's a very soft number one for such an expensive show with so many stars. We still have to see a full week, since this is just the first couple of days, but I think it's soft out of the gate. They gave Zoe Kazan and her creative partner Lonesome Dove before seeing the numbers. Little House on the Prairie also got a renewal before it aired and isn't doing particularly well. I don't think this kind of content does well on Netflix. East of Eden feels very HBO, very Kate Winslet's Mildred Pierce, and I think it should have been weekly rather than a binge. Fans focused on the chemistry between Mike Faist and Pugh, only for them to have hardly any scenes together. It's really Christopher Abbott front and center, and I think the lack of chatter about him seems to prove a lot of us correct that he's not a good choice for Professor X.

Jacob Tremblay's movie isn't a great start to his adult career, though number one is number one, and true crime and Tyler Perry continue to deliver. The Breadwinner just didn't work for Nate Bargatze. I don't think his political moment is why. The Breadwinner is just really weak and not a good showcase for his talent. On digital, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is number one, but I'm surprised Coyote vs. Acme dropped to the middle of the top 10 in only its second week. The Invite is still going extremely strong, and I hope Tony gets into the awards conversation too. Dominic Sessa is a phenomenal new actor.

Street Fighter faces its test this weekend

Can Street Fighter deliver on those trailers? I'm nervous, and Hollywood really needs it to. Austin Abrams is back with Whalefall after Resident Evil and is doing a tremendous amount of publicity, though I don't know why the poster doesn't feature him. "Stop promoting the whale." The new Sense and Sensibility also opens after a reception in the UK where they think it's only medium. In limited release, a Netflix awards contender will officially report its box office, and another film is selling out in New York and Los Angeles, though I worry social media will spoil its surprises.

On digital, Practical Magic 2 arrives Tuesday. On services, Love of Your Life brings more Aaron Pierre to Prime Video, Master Plan has Stanley Tucci, Apple TV has Tenzing with Willem Dafoe, and Netflix has Sacrifice with Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans and Salma Hayek, although the trailer looks pretty bad, plus a Norm Macdonald documentary I bet does quite well. For shows, VisionQuest debuts Wednesday with two hour long episodes, Helluva Boss season three arrives on Prime Video, and Love Is Blind, The Lowdown and Beavis and Butt-Head return Thursday. What I've seen of The Diplomat is incredible, and A24's Crystal Lake drops all episodes Thursday. I've seen all eight, and I think it could be hot for Halloween. Tulsa King returns Friday.

Do you think Street Fighter will be a win or a loss for Hollywood?