Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning opened to $5.5 million at the domestic box office, about a quarter of the $22.6 million The Social Network earned in its first weekend in 2010. The film, released by Sony and co-produced with Alcon, cost a reported $30 million.
Sorkin has asked journalists to treat the new film as a companion piece to The Social Network rather than a sequel. Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg in a supporting role, while Mikey Madison stars as Facebook data engineer Frances Haugen, who leaks internal files to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, played by Jeremy Allen White. The story draws on the Journal’s Facebook investigations, which began in 2021, and also covers Zuckerberg’s response to misinformation and the 6 January Capitol riot.
The reaction from audiences was muted. The film received a B- CinemaScore and Rotten Tomatoes scores of 55 per cent from critics and 73 per cent from audiences, and its trailers made little impact on TikTok and Instagram, the platforms that have replaced Facebook as the main draw for younger viewers. The Social Network, by contrast, grossed $225 million and won Sorkin the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, helped by a David Fincher-shaped campaign built around the feud between Jesse Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield’s Eduardo Saverin.
Paul Dergarabedian of Rentrak said the weekend repeated a trend from the previous frame, when lighter genre titles also beat heavier dramas. “The cinematic equivalent of fast food is outperforming the cinematic equivalent of fine dining,” he said, adding that Facebook no longer feels like an exciting subject and that the 2010 film had stronger emotional hooks. Sony’s wider slate is in good shape regardless, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day at $2.5 billion and Resident Evil tracking towards $425 million worldwide after a $40 million opening in China. Other Mommy was among the weekend’s other new releases, and Warner Bros. and DC’s Clayface arrives later in the month.
The result arrives ahead of several more films about technology and its leaders. A24’s You Can See Everything, a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes with Nathan Fielder as interviewer, opens in limited release next weekend. Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, which stars Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman alongside Yura Borisov, moved to Neon after Amazon MGM dropped it and opens in limited release on Christmas Day, with a wider rollout expected in January 2027. Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three are also still playing in cinemas.
