“You Can See Everything,” the buzzy Elizabeth Holmes documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, grossed an estimated $15 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend, according to Sunday estimates. A24 released the film in just 855 theaters across the U.S. and Canada, earning an average of about $17,544 per theater and securing a rarefied place among hit theatrical documentaries.
That’s the second-biggest opening ever for a documentary, behind only Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which debuted to $23.9 million on 868 screens in 2004. A24 said more than 2,000 screenings sold out over the weekend, and the opening was roughly double the $7 million to $8 million Variety had projected.
The movie ranked second at the weekend box office behind Paramount and Legendary’s “Street Fighter,” which grossed $31 million. “Street Fighter,” however, opened wide across 3,575 theaters, averaging just $8,671 per location—less than half of what “You Can See Everything” pulled in per theater. The documentary also beat this weekend’s other new wide releases: 20th Century Studios’ “Whalefall” ($8 million) and Focus Features’ “Sense and Sensibility” ($7.25 million), nearly doubling the former and more than doubling the latter.
Outgrossing Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’
The documentary’s debut also nearly doubled that of Warner Bros.’ “Digger,” the Tom Cruise–led dark comedy from director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, which opened to $8 million earlier this month. “Digger” was green-lit at a reported $125 million, with production costs reportedly climbing to between $160 million and $180 million, and Variety has projected it could lose about $245 million over its theatrical run. In its third weekend, “Digger” grossed just $920,000, finishing 15th—13 spots behind “You Can See Everything.”
Other films “You Can See Everything” outpaced over the weekend include “Other Mommy,” “Verity,” “Resident Evil,” “Heart of the Beast,” “Forgotten Island,” “The Social Reckoning,” and A24’s own “Primetime”—all narrative studio releases. The documentary, by contrast, carried a combined production and marketing budget reported to be under $20 million.
How it stacks up against other documentaries
“You Can See Everything” more than doubled the opening of Amazon MGM Studios’ “Melania,” which debuted to about $7 million across 1,778 theaters in late January after the studio spent $40 million on the rights and roughly $35 million on marketing.
Other documentaries have found box office success over the years. “Fahrenheit 9/11” went on to gross $119.2 million domestically, still the record for a documentary. “March of the Penguins” opened on just four screens in 2005 before expanding into a nationwide hit with $77.4 million domestically, and “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” grossed $72 million domestically in 2009, according to Box Office Mojo data.
These documentaries are the exceptions. Documentaries rarely get theatrical distribution, and when they do, releases are often limited and buried beneath narrative films at the box office. That makes “You Can See Everything” an outlier, not just as a commercial success for a documentary but in how thoroughly it has captured the public’s attention.
From a secret Telluride screening to Oscar buzz
Ever since the movie made its surprise premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on Sept. 6, critics have praised its audacity and distinctiveness, though not everyone is convinced it gets at the real Theranos story. A compelling marketing campaign highlighted the unusual dynamic between Holmes—the Theranos founder serving a more than 11-year federal prison sentence for fraud—and Fielder, a comedian whose work famously blurs the line between performance and reality. Murmurs of surprises and spoilers—commonplace for blockbusters but hardly typical for documentaries—spread like wildfire in the lead-up to the release.
The film now holds a 99% score on Rotten Tomatoes, and its 4.8 average on Letterboxd is the highest ever recorded on the platform, according to Boxoffice Pro. Awards watchers are now debating whether it could make history as the first documentary ever nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
All of this has made “You Can See Everything” one of the must-see movies of the fall—if not the must-see movie. Rarely has nonfiction been this popular, this captivating, or this big a box-office draw.
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