SATURDAY AM: Refresh for more and chart…It’s a healthy third weekend at the October box office even with a bellyflop in 20th Century Studio’s $60M Whalefall in the mix which is only swallowing a $7.5M opening. Paramount/Legendary/Capcom’s Street Fighter is doing what it’s suppose to do with a $31M start, largely pulling in an older dude demo over 35 at 45% (that’s what’s walloping Whalefall‘s business, the overlap in male demos).
But the scene stealer again this year is A24 with their 3 hour Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything which is charting the second best opening ever for a documentary at the box office with $12M-$14M at 855 screens, right behind 2004’s Fahrenheit 9/11 ($23.9M). Eight years after tech blood analysis company Theranos cratered, and four years after Hulu’s Emmy winning Amanda Seyfried starring limited series, The Dropout, who knew there was still this much interest in Holmes? Well, A24, you certainly seduced everyone with your sneaky secret world premiere mic drop at Telluride.
We’re getting reports about 1,300 sellouts so far this weekend and lines around the block for You Can See Everything at the Village East in NYC as well as the Belcourt in Nashville, Tenn. see below:
Screenshot
There is no CinemaScore on You Can See Everything because it’s under 1,000 screens. Definite recommend is an unprecedented 91% for a documentary — that’s the type of scores successful Marvel movies like Black Panther would put up back in the day. Typically, A24 movies succeed in dividing. Not this one.
The Gen Zers are gobbling this up with 18-34 showing up at 62%. Overall positive score on Screen Engine/Rentrak’s PostTrak is 98% so A24 can take that to the bank. 56% to 44% male-female turnout with moviegoers making it a date night (44% came with a spouse, partner, BF or GF). Big walk-up business with 41% purchasing their tickets the day of. Diversity demos are Caucasian at 68%, Latino and Hispanic at 15%, Asian American at 8% and Black at 5%.
Top grossing theaters yesterday for You Can See Everything were the AMC Empire, followed by the AMC Kabuki in San Francisco, and then AMC Lincoln Square. New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and Seattle are the top moneymaking cities for the Lance Oppenheim and Fielder directed documentary.
RelishMix beams, “You Can See Everything has a very selective platform roll-out with only an Instagram at 13K fans and 42M views on YouTube off of two videos dropped by A24. Share-reposting stats run at 61:1 which is exceptional. Overall, awareness stats of 102M for You Can See Everything, next to indy-dramas, are outpacing by 40%.”
This is also boosted by co-director and the documentary’s deadpan star Nathan Fielder, whose Instagram has hit 1M fans, and which has also fed 30M video views.
Says RelishMix about the pic’s online chatter, “Convo leans positive for You Can See Everything with fans obsessed comments about Elizabeth Holmes’ eyeballs and Nathan Fielder’s genius reputation. Praise skews heavily for craft, with viewers marveling, ‘a documentary can be cut, scored, and lit like a psychological horror film, using the edit bay for its own Oscar campaign.’ There’s affection for Fielder, who finally met his match, with fans framing this as a ‘career-culmination moment.’ Fans play critics, praising, ‘the score and cinematography are doing narrative heavy lifting that most verite documentaries never attempt.’ Others praise the single-tear moment into a meme-worthy ‘money shot’ while still respecting the audacity behind it. Many adore the genre-bending, ‘The miracle of making a documentary look like a psychological horror movie,” while another notes: ‘A genuine person who wants everyone to believe he’s fake meets a fake person who wants ever-ever to believe she’s genuine.’”
Callina Liang in ‘Street Fighter’
Paramount
At $31M, Street Fighter is doing alright, just 19% off from Mortal Kombat 2‘s $38.5M opening, though Paramount was hoping for more. Hopefully it can keep its Saturday together and get walk-up business from families; parents and kids under 12 only accounting for 11% of business so far. Definite recommend is OK at 65% overall and 60% for kids under 12. CinemaScore is a B- which is under 2021’s Mortal Kombat (B+) and this past May’s Mortal Kombat 2 (B). Latino and Hispanic moviegoers are leading at 30%, followed by Caucasian at 29%, Black at 21%, Asian American at 14% and Other/Native American at 6%. AMC Burbank is the top venue for the pic with $63K. Best area of play is South, South Central and West. PLFs and Imax are repping 58% of the weekend, which only continues to underscore the need for more these types of auditoriums.
WHALEFALL, Austin Abrams, 2026. © 20th Century Studios / courtesy Everett Collection
Before you call it Whalefail, take a silent moment to respect that this feature take of the Daniel Kraus thriller novel was shot here in California providing jobs. Unfortunately the movie is seeing its over 25 male and female audience bedazzled by Holmes, or eating popcorn at Street Fighter. CinemaScore is B, and Street Fighter is the bigger IP with a similar exit. Much like Paramount’s booking of The Heart of the Beast, this was an attempt to get sophisticated adults in the room and may some 18-34 who think it’s cool to be gobbled up by a whale. 55% to 45% male-to-female. The 25-34 set is the largest demo at 36% with 69% over 25. A definite recommend that’s OK at 61% Diversity demos are 45% Caucasian, 32% Latino and Hispanic, 9% Asian American, 9% Black and 5% Native American/other. PLFs reps 21% of the weekend cash register. South Central is the best market for this film. AMC Burbank has the pic’s best gross at $17K.
It feels like it was yesterday since we had a sea thriller, but it’s arguably been ten years since 2016’s The Finest Kind and 11 years since In the Heart of the Sea. Thing is this sub-genre hasn’t worked in quite a while (not counting Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the last successful title was arguably 2000’s The Perfect Storm with a $41M 3-day and $182m final domestic; that based on a very popular Sebastian Junger book with massive stars George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg at the time). In the Heart of the Sea, a period whale tale, was drowned by its $100M production cost and a $11M opening while Finest Hours starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Casey Affleck bowed to $10.2M. Both Finest Hours and In the Heart of the Sea finaled stateside in the mid $20Ms. It’s clear there’s something mundane about the sub-genre.
Focus Features’ Sense and Sensibility has a much lower cost than Whalefall at $20M before P&A and a fifth place opening of $6.7M. It gets an A- CinemaScore, a half grade lower than the A earned by its 1995 Oscar winning predecessor from director Ang Lee and co-scribe/star Emma Thompson, as well as then burgeoning pre-Titanic star Kate Winslet.
The overall weekend for the 42nd frame of the year are coming in at an estimated $101M, which is +49% ahead of a year ago when Black Phone 2 led the box office with a $27.3M opening. That’s the third best 42nd weekend post Covid after 2022’s $113.6M (when Black Adam debuted to No. 1) and 2021’s $109.2M (when Halloween Kills led).
More, we’re not done yet.
FRIDAY PM UPDATE: Street Fighter is currently coming in at the lower end of expectations with a $30M opening after a $12.5M Friday (including previews) at 3,575 theaters, which includes previews. Hopefully Saturday can keep it together with family traffic. Note, the only MLB playoff game this weekend is between Tampa Bay and the Cleveland Guardians, so don’t expect a slowdown at the box office.
Interesting to note that the opening here alone is close to what the original 1994 take on the Capcom game finaled at which was $33.4M (unadjusted for inflation). That pic starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and opened to $6.8M via Universal.
The first Legendary title under its new deal with Paramount had a big social media universe grab heading into the weekend with 920.6M from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. That’s bigger than other videogame movies, Legendary’s Minecraft Movie (772.4M), Mortal Kombat 2 (452.6M) and Five Nights at Freddy‘s (488.5M). This is all according to RelishMix. One of the big early September pushes for Street Fighter was a novel playable “The Street Fighter Combo Trailer” which launched on YouTube Playables, which placed film footage inside a virtual arcade cabinet and utilized game-style mechanics.
The Rotten Tomatoes audience score for Street Fighter is currently at 80%, not far from the 86% of Mortal Kombat 2, which was rated-R, but based on a similar martial arts video game born during the Gen X era.
A24’s You Can See Everything with a 99% RT audience score and an expected opening around $12M after a $5.3M Friday (including previews) at 885 theaters is bound to unseat Melania which debuted to $7.1M and was called the best opening for a documentary in ten years. The intel we have shows that You Can See Everything is the second best opening for a documentary in the past 17 years (not counting concert films), behind 2004’s Fahrenheit 9/11 ($23.9M) and ahead of Disney’s 2012 Chimpanzee at $10.6M. The Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim-directed trippy non-fiction film follows Theranos architect Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans in the run-up to the former’s stay in a federal prison.
Universal Blumhouse Atomic Monster’s Other Mommy at 3,370 theaters is posting a second Friday of $2.4M and second weekend of $7.4M in third, -73%, for a running cume of $43.9M. That drop after last weekend’s D+ CinemaScore is to be expected.
Getting beached is 20th Century Studio’s Whalefall with a $2.6M Friday (including previews) and $6M-$7M opening, far below the $11M that tracking was spotting. Many enjoy watching Austin Abrams getting swallowed by zombies, Zach Cregger style. No one wants to watch him go through a Pinocchio experience, meaning being eaten by a whale. The audience score is 82% on RT.
Focus Features’ Sense & Sensibility at 2,545 sites is seeing a Friday of $3M, and 3-day of $6M. That result is just $600K shy of the $6.6M that Focus’ Conclave opened to, but that was in fewer theaters, that being 1,753. No RT audience score yet. The previous 1995 Ang Lee-directed take of the Jane Austen classic was a platform release back in the day, but legged its way to a $43.4M domestic final.
UPDATE after exclusive: Paramount/Legendary/Capcom’s Street Fighter rang up exactly what we saw last night, $4 million in previews, while A24’s zany Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything filed $1.75M, but with awesome exits (e.g., 92% definite recommend, 100% positive score).
20th Century Studios’ Whalefall was at $900,000 from Thursday’s showtimes, while Focus Features’ Sense & Sensibility revival in all previews (not just last night) did $1.15M.
You Can See Everything drew 50-50 male-female while the Gen-Z’ers came out in bulk at 75% under 35 in Los Angeles and New York last night. Letterboxd is now up to 4.7 and ranking among the top 50 movies of all time.
Whalefall, which was shot in California for a net $60M, follows Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams), who after the death of his father (Josh Brolin) goes diving off the central coast in search of his remains and is swallowed by a massive sperm whale. While trapped inside its belly with only one hour of oxygen left, Jay comes to realize that the hard-earned lessons his father imparted may be the key to his escape.
The thriller is booked at 3,065 theatres including 500 Premium Large Format screens and 250 D-Box/Motion screens. Last night’s previews are far below the $2M made by the recent fall thriller Heart of the Beast, which went on to open to $20M (granted, that one starred Brad Pitt).
The Los Angeles Dodgers aren’t going to the World Series again this year as the Milwaukee Brewers swept them out of the National League Championship Series last night. Tampa Bay and Cleveland are still duking it out in the ALCS with games tonight and Saturday. Translation: This year’s World Series won’t have any impact on box office capitals New York City and L.A.
Below is this week’s top 5:
1.) Other Mommy (Uni) 3,365 theaters, Wk $36.5M/Wk 1
2.) Verity (AMZ) 3,572 theaters, Wk $17.5M (-59%), Total $59.9M/Wk 2
3.) Resident Evil (Sony) 3,085 theaters, Wk $12.8M (-28%), Total $142.9M/Wk 4
4.) Heart of the Beast (Par) 3,365 theaters, Wk $10.9M (-28%), Total $53.4M/Wk 3
5.) Forgotten Island (Uni) 2,898 theaters, Wk $7.09M (-24%), Total $32.8M/Wk 3
PREVIOUSLY, Thursday EXCLUSIVE: Paramount/Legendary’s PG-13 take of the Capcom video game Street Fighter is off to a solid start Thursday night with around $4 million after showtimes that began at 2 p.m. (further boosted by a 7 p.m. fan showtime). The expectation is for the fisticuffs feature to open north of $30M; the pic cost a net $82M co-financed by Legendary and Capcom.
Per sources, Street Figther‘s preview estimate is under the $5.2M Thursday made by New Line’s R-rated Mortal Kombat 2, based on the Midway video game and which bowed in mid-May. One of the main differences between the two martial arts video games is that Street Fighter debuted in 1987, while Mortal Kombat followed in pizza parlors and arcades in 1992.
Mortal Kombat 2 earlier this year had previews that began at 3 p.m. with a first Friday of $16.8M and 3-day of $38.5M. There’s a mid-fall break going on now, which will hopefully trigger traffic to Street Fighter; Rentrak reports 21% K-12 schools off and 7% colleges. Street Fighter‘s previews are also ahead of Paramount’s 2020 pre-Covid Sonic the Hedgehog at $3M, leading to a first Friday of $20.9M and 3-day of $58M. However, that pic played over the Presidents Day holiday frame and was rated PG. Critics bruised Street Fighter with 47% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Impressive for the anomaly that it is out of the gate, the three-hour documentary You Can See Everything from A24 is filing around $2M in previews that began at 3 p.m. By comparison, the last documentary to post the decade’s best start at the domestic box office, Amazon MGM Studios’ Melania, bowed to $7.1M sans previews.
Lance Oppenheim co-directed You Can See Everything with the doc’s host Nathan Fielder, who follows fallen Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes before her stint in federal prison. Oppenheim’s previous movie, also his first narrative feature, this fall’s Primetime, posted previews of $2.7M; those began at 4 p.m. and turned into an $18.8M opening. Conservative estimates heading into this weekend had You Can See Everything in the high single-digit range, but confidence is growing that this critically acclaimed (100% fresh RT and 98% RT audience score) movie can open to north of $10M, which would outstrip Melania‘s previous opening domestic record for a documentary. You Can See Everything was shot over four years and cost less than $10M, with a marketing budget that was also under $10M.
Focus Features’ Sense & Sensibility and 20th Century Studios’ Whalefall also held previews today, both beginning at 2 p.m.; sources estimate they’re around $1M apiece. We will have official studio reported figures Friday AM.
Sense & Sensibility is expected to open around $8M, while Whalefall, based on the Daniel Kraus thriller novel, is eyeing a Friday-Sunday that’s north of $11M. Sense & Sensibility is 76% fresh with critics, while Whalefall stands at 70% fresh.