Sorkin's 'Social Reckoning' opens to an estimated weak $5.5M weekend

“The Social Reckoning,” Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to “The Social Network,” is on track to make only $5.5 million at the domestic box office this weekend, according to Sunday estimates. That’s below the studio’s own already-underwhelming projection of $7 million to $8 million, and it makes a “Social Network”-sized hit increasingly unlikely. The 2010 original opened to $22 million and went on to gross $97 million domestically — at 2010 ticket prices — while also winning Sorkin an Oscar and becoming one of the most influential on-screen portrayals of Silicon Valley and startup culture.

The soft opening lands at the start of a fall crowded with films built around villainous, real-world tech CEOs, and the wider box office could offer hints about how much appetite audiences have for the genre. Alex Gibney’s four-hour documentary “Musk” also opened this weekend, taking in just $69,000 from four theaters; it will expand to more theaters in the coming weeks, though given its length and subject matter it will likely reach a wider audience once it starts streaming on HBO Max. Still to come: Nathan Fielder’s apparently uncategorizable Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You Can See Everything,” out next weekend, and “Artificial,” a dramatization of OpenAI’s boardroom turmoil that recently picked up a new distributor after Amazon dropped it. Outside theaters, Netflix is adding to the wave with “The Altruists,” a series on Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX’s collapse, arriving in November.

Several factors may explain the weak start for “The Social Reckoning.” The theatrical landscape has shifted considerably in the 16 years since “The Social Network,” and the sequel’s tone is markedly heavier: rather than the excitement of Facebook’s early days, it centers on whistleblower Frances Haugen’s decision to leak what became known as the Facebook files. A story built around Senate hearings and algorithm changes may simply be a tougher sell than the earlier film’s founding-days drama. Reviews for the new film have also been lukewarm, and it’s possible the story’s natural audience — older moviegoers who return to theaters only sporadically — isn’t showing up in force, or that scrutinizing Facebook’s record now feels less urgent to audiences more preoccupied with AI.

Why it matters

A soft opening for “The Social Reckoning” offers an early read on audience appetite for this fall’s wave of films and documentaries built around villainous, real-world tech CEOs — a test of whether Hollywood’s current fascination with Big Tech’s record translates into box-office or streaming results.