'Other Mommy' Earns $3.6M in Previews, Tracks $22-28M Weekend

"Other Mommy," the Jessica Chastain-led supernatural thriller from Universal and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, posted $3.6 million in Thursday previews across 2,850 domestic screens. Tracking now points to a domestic opening between $22 million and $28 million, with bullish estimates reaching $35 million.

The figure extends a standout year for horror. After "Obsession" and "Backrooms" made 2026 a breakout stretch for the genre, the Chastain vehicle arrives as the latest candidate to capitalize on sustained audience appetite for theatrical scares. That tailwind gives the wide release a clear runway.

What is "Other Mommy" about?

Chastain plays dual roles. She is Ursula, mother to young daughter Bela, played by Arabella Olivia Clark, and the title entity, "Other Mommy" — a terrifying doppelgänger who looks exactly like Ursula. The family — including husband Jay Duplass as Russell — faces the evil, supernatural figure that invades the household.

The premise positions the actress in a dual performance that doubles as both a domestic drama and a supernatural horror conceit. The household becomes the central battleground.

The supporting cast adds Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed, Karen Allen and Sean Kaufman. The film adapts Josh Malerman's 2024 novel "Incidents Around the House," a horror title that collected several awards for top horror books upon release.

Its trailer, featuring a particularly frightening jump scare from Chastain as Other Mommy, went viral online after playing in front of theatrical screenings.

What else is opening this weekend?

"Other Mommy" faces one major new release: Sony's "The Social Reckoning," directed by Aaron Sorkin. Tracking places that film in the low single digits, between $5 million and $10 million, after $650,000 in previews. The disparity in preview grosses — more than five-to-one in favor of "Other Mommy" — points to a comfortable opening win for the horror film.

"The Social Reckoning" follows Sorkin's 2010 "The Social Network." The cast includes:

• Mikey Madison as whistleblower Frances Haugen
• Jeremy Strong as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
• Jeremy Allen White as Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz

Horwitz digs into thousands of pages of internal documents from the 2021 Facebook leak. The film dramatizes the 2021 disclosures and the reporting they triggered.

Can "Other Mommy" hold the top spot?

The supernatural thriller should easily topple last week's box office champion, the Colleen Hoover adaptation "Verity," starring Anne Hathaway as another unhinged mother. The two films — both built around disturbed maternal figures — meet at a moment when female-led psychological horror has clear commercial momentum.

The pairing offers a consecutive test of whether disturbed-mother narratives can sustain their theatrical pull, with each film positioning an A-list actress in a mother-turned-threat role.

With previews landing ahead of most projections and the genre tailwind of "Obsession" and "Backrooms" still fresh, "Other Mommy" appears positioned to define the weekend box office and extend horror's 2026 run at the multiplex.