A24’s documentary You Can See Everything, about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, took the No. 1 spot at the North American box office on Halloween weekend, its third weekend in theaters. It opened in only 855 theaters on October 16, grew in its second weekend, and has now earned about $64.7 million in the US and Canada according to The Numbers, an unusually large total for a nearly three-hour documentary.
What the film is
The film was made by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, the comedian known for Nathan For You and The Rehearsal. Variety says it follows Holmes’s rise and fall in the period before she began an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors, and that A24 produced it in secret over about three years for roughly $7 million (a figure Variety reports without a second source). TheWrap adds that Holmes and her partner Billy Evans invited the filmmakers into their lives hoping to show a different side of her. It had a surprise premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. The Numbers lists a 174-minute runtime and an R rating for language and some graphic nudity.
The box office run
Weekend by weekend, The Numbers lists these domestic grosses: $15.6 million in the opening weekend of October 16 to 18, $18.7 million in the second weekend (up 20%), and $11.4 million in the third (down 39%). Early reports at the time put the opening at about $15 million to $15.8 million and the second weekend at $19.5 million, so the figures differ slightly between estimates and later actuals.
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The opening was far ahead of expectations. Variety reports that projections had been $7 million to $8 million, that A24 cited more than 2,000 sold-out screenings, and that it was the biggest debut for any film on fewer than 1,000 screens since Borat in 2006. TheWrap describes it as the largest documentary opening since Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004 and notes that few films this century have grown in their second weekend; this one expanded to 2,655 theaters.
On Halloween weekend, TheWrap reported studio estimates of about $10.6 million for the documentary against $10.2 million for DC Studios’ Clayface, a gap of roughly $400,000. The Numbers’ later figures keep the same order, at $11.4 million to $11.0 million. It was the first time the documentary held the top spot after two weekends at No. 2.
Why it is spreading
TheWrap points to several reasons: strong word of mouth after festival raves, interest from true-crime followers of Holmes’s trial, Fielder’s cult following, and audience debate over the film’s ambiguities. Variety reports that about 70% of opening-weekend ticket buyers were under 35, and that in exit polls 90% said they would definitely recommend it (both are single-source figures from that report).
What happens next
Forecasts have been cooled by the third weekend. Before it, Box Office Company’s Daniel Loria told TheWrap that a third weekend of at least $15 million could carry the film past the $96 million domestic total of Marty Supreme, and a rival distributor called an $80 million run a lock. The third weekend came in below $15 million, so $100 million, which would make it the 11th documentary to get there according to TheWrap, now looks like a stretch rather than a given. Sony handles international distribution. New wide releases are coming, with The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opening on November 20, so the documentary’s run will face stiffer competition.
What is not confirmed
The film’s total is still a moving number, and early weekend figures are studio estimates that are later revised. Nothing in the sources checked for this article gives a final domestic projection from A24.
