Halloween weekend usually belongs to monsters. This year, a documentary got there first. A24’s You Can See Everything, the Elizabeth Holmes film from comedian Nathan Fielder and filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, took the top spot on Friday at the North American box office and is on course to stay narrowly ahead of Warner Bros. and DC’s Clayface through Sunday.
A documentary at number one
According to Friday figures reported by Variety and Box Office Mojo, You Can See Everything earned about $3.57 million on its third Friday after expanding to 3,243 theaters. Rival estimates put its weekend at roughly $10.65 million, which would push its domestic total well past $65 million after opening on October 16.
Documentaries rarely play like this. Most live on streaming services or in a handful of art-house cinemas. This one has turned into an event: Fielder and Oppenheim reportedly worked on it quietly for more than three years, and its look at the Theranos founder in the weeks before her prison sentence has sparked endless conversation online. A24 is also pushing it for awards well beyond the documentary category, including best picture and director.
Clayface stays close
Last week’s champion did not fall far. Clayface, James Watkins’ gory take on the shape-shifting Batman villain, made about $3.25 million on its second Friday and is tracking for around $10 million to $10.25 million for the weekend. That would bring it close to $47 million domestically. Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, an actor who agrees to a risky experimental treatment after his face is disfigured, with Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan in support.
A second-weekend drop was expected for a body-horror film that skews toward eager fans, and a spot this close to the top on Halloween counts as a decent hold.
The rest of the chart
Laika’s stop-motion adventure Wildwood took third on Friday with about $2.39 million and could add $7 million to $8 million over the weekend. With strong reviews and a family audience on a holiday weekend, it is building slowly, though its reported $100 million budget leaves it a long way to go.
The concert film BTS World Tour ‘ARIRANG’ in South America, released as part of HYBE Cine Fest, brought in around $2 million from just over 1,000 screens, the best per-theater average in the top five. Olivia Colman’s offbeat fable Wicker, in which a lonely fisherwoman orders a husband woven from willow, followed with $1.43 million on Friday.
A quiet weekend with a twist
Overall, the frame is modest, with all titles together grossing a little over $63 million. Still, it has a fun story: on the spookiest weekend of the year, audiences picked a real-life tale of a startup fraud over a monster made of clay. Final numbers arrive on Monday, and with the gap at the top this small, the order could still change.