“The Social Reckoning,” Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to “The Social Network,” is on track to gross just $5.5 million at the domestic box office this weekend, according to estimates as of Sunday.
That’s below the already disappointing $7-8 million the studio had projected, and means Sorkin’s new film is unlikely to become a “Social Network”-sized hit. The previous film had a $22 million opening weekend and grossed a total of $97 million domestically (and that’s at 2010 ticket prices). It also earned Sorkin an Oscar and became one of the most influential on-screen depictions of Silicon Valley and startup culture.
Beyond the fate of a single film, the weekend’s box office could also provide some insight into audience enthusiasm, or lack thereof, as we kick off a fall filled with films starring evil, real-world tech CEOs. There’s Alex Gibney’s four-hour documentary “Musk” (which also opened this weekend), Nathan Fielder’s seemingly unclassifiable Elizabeth Holmes documentary “You Can See Everything” (coming next weekend!) and the OpenAI conference drama “Artificial” (which has a new distributor after being dropped by Amazon).
Outside of theaters, Netflix also has a series called “The Altruists” coming in November, telling the story of Sam Bankman-Fried and the collapse of FTX.
As for “The Social Reckoning,” although “The Social Network” has enjoyed notable success, the theatrical landscape has changed significantly over the past 16 years. And where the first film focused on the excitement and drama of Facebook’s early days, the sequel is darker and heavier: it revolves around whistleblower Frances Haugen’s decision to leak what became known as the Facebook files.
So maybe a movie about Senate hearings and algorithm changes will never be a big hit. Or maybe the real audience for “The Social Reckoning” is among older moviegoers who only return to the movies sporadically. And I wonder if criticizing Facebook seems a little less urgent to an audience that is more likely to lose sleep over AI.
Perhaps just as importantly, the reviews for the new film just aren’t very good. (For what it’s worth, I enjoyed “The Social Reckoning,” but I will fully admit that it is overloaded with Sorkin’s trademark speech. And I couldn’t help but dream of a version directed — like the original — by David Fincher, with music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.)
“Musk,” meanwhile, earned $69,000 in its opening weekend at four theaters. It will be released more widely in the coming weeks, but given its length and subject matter, the documentary will likely reach many more viewers once it begins streaming on HBO Max.
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