A24’s You Can See Everything, the secretly filmed Elizabeth Holmes documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, is heading towards one of the biggest documentary openings in years. The film earned $1.75 million in Thursday previews and an estimated $5.3 million on Friday, including preview revenue. Deadline now projects a $12 million opening weekend. If that estimate holds, it would mark the biggest opening for a non-music documentary in 10 years. These figures are Friday-night projections, with final weekend numbers expected on Monday.
The film follows the disgraced Theranos founder as she invites Fielder, the creator of Nathan for You, and filmmaker Oppenheim into her home. The documentary begins a little over a month before Holmes started serving her 11-year federal prison sentence for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. According to Deadline, the project was filmed over four years. It made a surprise debut at the Telluride Film Festival on September 6 and runs for 174 minutes, or nearly three hours.
The film’s Thursday previews played across 855 screens, according to IndieWire’s Brent Lang, who described the $1.75 million result as “impressive” for a documentary that arrived after a marketing campaign shrouded in secrecy. Forbes reported that Deadline’s weekend projection covered 885 North American theatres. Alamo Drafthouse also said the film recorded the highest presales of any A24 title and any documentary in the cinema circuit’s history, measured by tickets sold.
The latest projection is well ahead of earlier forecasts. The Hollywood Reporter initially estimated a $7 million opening on Thursday, while Box Office Theory predicted $10.5 million. After the preview figures arrived, Variety projected an opening of $7 million to $8 million. Deadline subsequently raised its estimate from $10 million to $12 million after Friday’s numbers came in.
The previous record-holder for a non-music documentary opening was Melania, which earned $7.1 million from 1,778 theatres over the January 30–February 1 weekend. The projected performance of You Can See Everything would represent a significant result for a category in which films generally open to much smaller totals. As IndieWire noted, RBG earned $14.4 million over its entire theatrical run in 2018. If the current projection holds, You Can See Everything would generate more than half that amount in a single weekend. Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, which opened to $92.8 million, remains an exceptional outlier in the documentary market.
The film’s production costs also appear relatively modest compared with its projected opening. The Hollywood Reporter puts the production budget at $5 million, while Variety reports $7 million, with both figures excluding prints and advertising. Deadline says the production cost less than $10 million, with the marketing budget also below that threshold. The differing estimates have not been reconciled in the available reports.
Critical reception has provided another boost. According to Forbes, the documentary held a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 37 reviews as of Monday. That figure slipped to 99% on Friday after Time critic Stephanie Zacharek published a negative review. Deadline also reported strong audience exit polling, with 92% of viewers saying they would definitely recommend the film.
The critical response has included emphatic praise. The Guardian described the documentary as a “modern masterpiece of deceit,” while Rolling Stone’s David Fear wrote that viewers would struggle to describe what they had seen but would find it brilliant. The combination of strong reviews, audience response and curiosity surrounding the secretive production has helped position the film for a notable theatrical debut.
The documentary faces competition from several releases during the same weekend. Paramount’s Street Fighter is projected to open to $30 million from 3,575 theatres, against a reported production budget of $82 million. Whalefall is projected to earn between $6 million and $7 million, while Sense and Sensibility is expected to collect approximately $6 million. Netflix is also receiving its first box-office report for La Bola Negra. Meanwhile, Alex Gibney’s Musk is expanding to 472 locations after opening on four screens. The documentary has a runtime of nearly four hours, including an intermission.
A24 plans to expand You Can See Everything nationwide on October 23. The release also comes during a busy period for Oppenheim, whose narrative feature debut, Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson, arrived through A24 last month.
If Deadline’s $12 million projection holds, You Can See Everything will deliver the biggest opening for a non-music documentary in a decade. The result would place the film well above the category’s usual opening figures and underline the theatrical potential of a documentary that has generated attention through its unusual access to Holmes, its secretive production and its strong critical response.