You Can See Everything Opens to $15M: Why an Elizabeth Holmes Documentary Just Beat the Odds
A near-three-hour documentary about a convicted fraudster just out-grossed most of the studio movies in theaters. You Can See Everything, the Elizabeth Holmes film from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, opened to roughly $15 million in North America this weekend, and it did it on about 855 screens.
That is nearly double the $7–8 million Variety had projected, according to Forbes. It landed in second place behind Street Fighter ($31 million) and ahead of Whalefall, Sense and Sensibility and Other Mommy. On a per-theater basis (my math: $15M ÷ 855), that works out to roughly $17,500 a screen. Street Fighter was in far more theaters than that.
Where it sits in documentary history
Forbes and Parade both report it as the second-biggest documentary opening ever, behind Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which opened to $23.9 million in 2004. Parade is careful to say "non-musical" documentary, which matters: concert films have posted bigger numbers, so "second-biggest" depends on how you draw the line around the genre. Either way, it is far ahead of Melania, which opened in January to roughly $7 million (outlets vary between about $7M and $8M, so treat that as approximate).
What the film is
A24 is distributing and also produced. The directors, Fielder (Nathan for You, The Rehearsal) and Oppenheim (Some Kind of Heaven), made it in secret, with Holmes letting a crew into her home in the weeks before she reported to federal prison. Per Forbes, she is about three years into an 11-plus-year sentence for wire fraud and conspiracy. The film surprise-premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September.
Why this is the interesting number
Studios keep telling us audiences don't show up for anything that isn't a franchise. A long, talky nonfiction film about a story most people think they already know, from two directors with a very specific sensibility, just posted a better opening than most of this year's wide releases. A24 told the trades that a big share of the audience was under 35 (briefs.co reports roughly 70%), which is the demographic theaters worry about most.
The caution: a strong platform-style opening isn't a guarantee of legs. Docs usually front-load, and we'll know a lot more after the second weekend. But for now, "true crime and a distinctive director" looks like a real theatrical formula, not just a streaming one.
[AFFILIATE: Fielder's The Rehearsal or Nathan for You box set]
Lance Oppenheim at the Venice Film Festival. Photo: Colleen Sturtevant / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Featured image: Nathan Fielder, photo by Northwest / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.