Paramount’s video game movie leads with about $31 million, while A24’s ‘You Can See Everything’ heads for one of the best documentary openings ever.
Last weekend, the industry decided audiences did not want movies about tech moguls. This weekend, a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes is selling out theaters. Paramount’s Street Fighter is on track to win the weekend with about $31 million, but the real story is A24‘s You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim‘s Theranos documentary, which is heading for roughly $12 million from just 855 locations and one of the best openings ever for a non-music documentary.
The Real Winner
The per-theater math makes the case. At about $14,000 per location, You Can See Everything is averaging roughly 60 percent more per screen than Street Fighter, which is playing in more than four times as many theaters. A24 reports around 750 sold-out screenings, and in New York and Los Angeles, 75 percent of ticket buyers were under 35.
The reviews explain the turnout. The film holds a 99 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences and a 4.8 average on Letterboxd, the highest ever for a title on the platform. It would top the roughly $7 million opening that Melania set earlier this year as the biggest documentary launch in more than a decade. The film was one of the late additions to this year’s New York Film Festival, as we noted in our NYFF64 breakdown.
It is also a sharp rebuttal to the narrative from last weekend, when The Social Reckoning stalled at $5.5 million and analysts suggested tech-world stories belong on streaming. The difference may be tone. Sorkin made a civics lesson. Fielder and Oppenheim made an event.
‘Street Fighter’ Lands Light
Street Fighter is the first release under Paramount’s new distribution deal with Legendary, and its opening is coming in below the studio’s mid-$30 million expectations. On a reported $82 million budget, roughly $31 million is a decent but unspectacular start. It earned a B- CinemaScore, and the split between critics and fans is stark: 42 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, 82 percent from audiences. That gap usually points to a fan-driven front-loaded run.
The Rest of the Weekend
Other Mommy fell about 72 percent in its second weekend to around $7.8 million, the steep drop that its D+ CinemaScore suggested, though its roughly $44.3 million domestic total is already more than double its $19 million budget.
20th Century Studios’ Whalefall, Brian Duffield’s adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ novel starring Austin Abrams as a diver swallowed by a sperm whale, is sinking with about $7 million against an $11 million projection and a $60 million budget.
Focus Features’ Sense and Sensibility is opening to roughly $6.7 million from 2,545 theaters with an A- CinemaScore, the best grade of the weekend. On a budget in the mid-$20 millions, strong word of mouth from its adult audience could give it a long run. (See our photos from the Los Angeles premiere.)
Netflix also opened its Oscar contender La Bola Negra in four theaters, and for the first time ever, the streamer says it will publicly report box office numbers. Next weekend brings Clayface, Wildwood, Klara and the Sun, Ali G: Who Iz I? and Wicker.
