“You Can See Everything” has remained a box office juggernaut, powering to $80 million in North America after just four weekends of release. At this rate, A24‘s red-hot movie about Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes is primed to surpass $100 million in the US, a hugely impressive milestone for a nearly three-hour documentary.
Over the weekend, “You Can See Everything” collected $8.8 million from 2,473 theatres in its fourth frame, a minimal 23% decline. It now ranks as the second-highest grossing non-music documentary ever in North America, above 2005’s “March of the Penguins” ($77 million) and behind Michael Moore’s 2005 film “Fahrenheit 9/11” ($119 million).
“You Can See Everything” has yet to be released internationally; it’s getting a staggered rollout starting at the end of November. It’ll have to resonate with foreign audiences to topple the genre’s worldwide box office records. “Fahrenheit 9/11” stands as the biggest documentary in history with $103 million overseas and $222 million globally, followed by “March of the Penguins” with $49 million overseas and $127 million globally.
“‘You Can See Everything’ has really broken the rules of how a documentary can perform at the box office,” says Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian. “It has defied box office gravity week after week and clearly captured the imagination of audiences.”
After a surprise world premiere at Telluride Film Festival, “You Can See Everything” became a word-of-mouth sensation, bolstered by some of the best reviews of the year. After opening to $15 million in mid October, the movie has continued to pack in crowds, many of whom have returned to theatres to process and unpack the stranger-than-fiction film. Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, “You Can See Everything” takes place over three years and begins as Holmes, the founder of the health technology company Theranos, is preparing for her 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors.
The turnout for “You Can See Everything” is impressive considering there’s been plenty of films and television shows about Holmes. Her rise and dramatic fall from grace were immortalised in the Hulu series “The Dropout,” starring Amanda Seyfried, as well as Alex Gibney’s “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.” All the secrecy around “You Can See Everything,” a project that nobody knew about until about a month before it landed in theatres, dialled up the anticipation. The doc’s popularity also speaks to the commercial appeal of Fielder, a master of cringe comedy. He’s developed a flair for blending reality and fiction through shows like HBO’s “The Rehearsal” and Comedy Central’s “Nathan For You,” and moviegoers were intrigued to awkwardly witness the dynamic between him and Holmes.
The unlikely box office powerhouse has even managed to outgross several major fall releases, including Oppenheim’s “Primetime,” a frenetic drama starring Robert Pattinson as “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen ($46 million to date), DC’s comic book adventure “Clayface” ($56 million to date), Brad Pitt’s survival thriller “Heart of the Beast” ($67 million) and the Colleen Hoover adaptation “Verity,” led by Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson ($75 million). All of those movies were bolstered by months-long, multi-million-dollar marketing campaigns.
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For A24, “You Can See Everything” stands as the indie studio’s third-biggest US release ever, surpassing 2022’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” ($77 million) and trailing only this summer’s “Backrooms” ($197 million) and 2025’s “Marty Supreme” ($96 million). With a $7 million production budget, it’ll be hugely profitable, too.
From Variety US