The Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything gave DC Universe’s Clayface a run for its money at the box office this weekend.
Clayface, a horror movie about the Batman villain of the same name, sat comfortably at No. 1 on its debut weekend, taking in $24 million from 3,458 North American theaters. But You Can See Everything wasn’t far behind – again defying box office expectations.
The documentary about the disgraced Theranos founder, by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, collected an impressive $19.5 million while expanding to 2,655 venues on its second weekend, according to Rentrak, which compiles box office data. So far, the movie has made $45 million in total domestically.
The film begins 34 days before Holmes surrenders herself at the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, where she’s serving an 11-year sentence after being convicted on four counts of fraud and conspiracy for lying about the capabilities of her biotech company’s blood testing technology.
The movie has been such a success that A24 expanded the film to 2,655 theaters, which makes it an exceptionally wide release for a documentary and more than triple its opening-weekend footprint.
You Can See Everything is the highest-grossing nonmusical documentary since Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004, and reviews have been overwhelmingly positive across the board.
Some commentators are predicting that it could become the first documentary to ever score a best picture nomination at the Oscars.
Clayface was a modest opening for a comic-book adaptation, but it was probably a relief for DC, since the studio has struggled with success at the box office this year.
The studio’s Supergirl was a box office flop in July, taking in $126 million worldwide against production marketing costs of at least $270 million.
In third place in the weekend box office rankings was Wildwood, a stop-motion animation about a teenage girl who searches an enchanted forest for her kidnapped brother. The movie debuted at $11 million this weekend and received rave reviews, but was expensive to make at about $100 million.
Following behind was the romantic fantasy movie Wicker, starring Olivia Colman as a lonely fisherwoman who commissions a basket maker to create her a husband (Alexander Skarsgard), taking in a solid $6 million.
Klara and the Sun, the adaptation of the sci-fi novel of the same name, didn’t have much success on its opening weekend, collecting just $725,000 from 880 theaters. It stars Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams.
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