Jeremy Strong took his box-office beating with a joke. After his film “The Social Reckoning” opened to a fraction of Jessica Chastain’s horror hit “Other Mommy,” he texted her a headline announcing her victory.
Chastain shared the exchange on her Instagram Story. Strong sent an article headlined “Other Mommy Spanks The Social Reckoning at the Box Office,” then told her she looked “INSANE” as Ursula, the sinister figure she plays.
The numbers explain the ribbing. “Other Mommy” took $27.5 million from 3,365 theaters over its opening weekend, beating Universal’s expectation of roughly $20 million. It added $17.7 million overseas for a $45.2 million global start. Strong’s film earned $5.5 million from 2,606 locations. That is less than a third of what its predecessor, “The Social Network,” opened to.
The win came with caveats. Critics hammered “Other Mommy,” leaving it near 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences handed it a D+ CinemaScore. That is the lowest audience grade since “Megalopolis” two years ago. Grades like that usually signal a steep second-weekend drop.
Sorkin wrote and directed “The Social Reckoning,” a sequel that casts Strong as Mark Zuckerberg and follows Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison. Box-office forecasters had flagged trouble before release. They pointed to Sorkin’s spotty record as a director and a cast without returning players, which gave the film “off-brand vibes.”
Strong had already shown a thick skin about the project. When told that some social media users predicted an Oscar nomination for him and others a Razzie nomination, he called it “the greatest endorsement.”
The text swap fits a friendship that spans two decades. Chastain and Strong co-starred in “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Molly’s Game.” In 2021, when a magazine profile of Strong set off a wave of online criticism, Chastain publicly defended him.
