A nearly three-hour documentary about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes opened to roughly $15 million at the North American box office this weekend, the strongest debut for a nonfiction film in years. “You Can See Everything,” directed by comedian Nathan Fielder and filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, took in an estimated $5.3 million on Friday and finished second for the weekend. A24, its distributor, released it Oct. 16 in 855 theaters. “Street Fighter,” the weekend’s top film, played in 3,575. Industry projections had put the documentary’s debut at $7 million to $8 million, so the result nearly doubled expectations.
Reports differ on exactly how historic the number is. Several outlets place it as the biggest documentary opening since Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004, with concert films excluded. Others call it the best in a decade for a non-music documentary. All agree it beat “Melania,” which opened to $7.1 million in January. Demand ran high. The film logged about 2,000 sellout screenings, and critics piled on praise. It holds a 99% score on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
Part of the pull is the premise. Fielder, creator of “The Rehearsal,” and Oppenheim won extensive access to Holmes and her family during the month before she reported to prison. Holmes received an 11-year federal sentence for defrauding investors in Theranos, the blood-testing company that reached a $9 billion valuation before reporting by John Carreyrou in The Wall Street Journal exposed its claims. TechCrunch’s reviewer wrote that Holmes appears to have finally met her match in the deadpan Fielder.
The audience arrived despite a crowded field of Theranos content. Books, podcasts, a TV drama and Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley” have all covered the collapse. Fielder and Oppenheim kept their project quiet until a secretive screening at the Telluride Film Festival last month.
The numbers give A24 a rare theatrical win for a long-form documentary, a category that usually reaches viewers through streaming. A film running close to three hours also leaves exhibitors fewer showtimes per day, which makes the sellouts more notable.
