“Other Mommy” may have dominated “The Social Reckoning” at the box office this past weekend, but there’s no hard feelings between longtime friends Jessica Chastain and Jeremy Strong.
Chastain, who stars as a demonic mother in horror movie “Other Mommy,” shared on her Instagram Story Monday night a playful string of text messages with Strong, who plays Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin’s “Social Network” follow-up.
Strong texted Chastain a Vulture headline about “Other Mommy’s” box office success which read, “‘Other Mommy’ Spanks ‘The Social Reckoning’ at the Box Office.” Indeed, it did — “Other Mommy” scored the No. 1 spot with $27.5 million, while “The Social Reckoning” flopped with just $5.5 million.
“Omg,” Chastain replied, to which Strong fired back with a middle finger emoji and kiss emoji.
“These pics are hysterical,” Chastain commented of Vulture’s photo choice, featuring them side-by-side in character. “Its so funny,” Strong said, to which Chastain responded: “You look SO SAD!”
“Other Mommy” debuted well above box office expectations, considering the fact that it received poor reviews and a D+ grade on CinemaScore. With a budget of just $18 million, Blumhouse and Universal’s campy thriller is well positioned financially.
“The Social Reckoning,” on the other hand, failed to live up to its projected debut of $7 million to $8 million. Critics were mixed on the film, which follows a Facebook engineer (Mikey Madison) who leaks thousands of internal documents to a reporter (Jeremy Allen White) to blow the whistle on the company’s dark practices. Strong once again went Method to portray Zuckerberg, with Sorkin telling The New York Times that the actor treated his co-stars “the way he imagines” Zuckerberg would.
“I told all the other actors in his scenes: ‘Guys, he’s not going to be hanging out with you at craft service. He’s not going to be yucking it up with you between takes. He’s probably not going to speak to you at all. He is going to treat you the way he imagines Mark treats the people around him,’” Sorkin said. “And that’s what happened. You cannot argue with the results.”
