Key takeaways
- "You Can See Everything" opened to $15 million, the second-largest documentary opening ever, despite playing in just 855 theaters with 2,000 sellout screenings.
- Nathan Fielder's involvement as co-director appears central to the film's appeal, bringing his distinctive documentary and comedic style to the Elizabeth Holmes story.
- The documentary's 99% score on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic reflects critical consensus, while competing tech-focused films "The Social Reckoning" and "Musk" underperformed significantly.
The documentary “You Can See Everything,” chronicling Elizabeth Holmes and her blood-testing startup Theranos, has opened to $15 million at the box office based on Sunday estimates. The figure marks the second-largest opening weekend for a documentary film in history.
The nearly three-hour film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last month in a secretive screening. It is currently playing in 855 theaters—less than a quarter of the 3,575 locations occupied by the weekend’s top film, “Street Fighter.” Despite the limited release, the documentary generated 2,000 sellout screenings and has earned a 99% score on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
A Story Told Many Ways
Holmes founded Theranos after dropping out of Stanford, claiming to have developed technology that could perform comprehensive blood tests from a single finger prick. The company attracted major investments and backing from prominent Silicon Valley figures, reaching a valuation of $9 billion at its peak. After investigations revealed the technology did not work as promised, the company dissolved and Holmes faced criminal charges. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors.
This narrative has already been explored extensively. Books, podcasts, scripted miniseries, and earlier documentaries have all examined Holmes’ rise and fall. What distinguishes this latest film is the access secured by its filmmakers: for one month before Holmes entered prison, they documented her and her family in intimate settings, material that had not been available to earlier storytellers.
Nathan Fielder’s Unconventional Approach
The Director’s Involvement
Nathan Fielder, creator of the HBO series “The Rehearsal,” co-directed the film with Lance Oppenheim. Fielder’s involvement elevated public anticipation considerably. His work is known for blending documentary realism with constructed scenarios and a deadpan comedic sensibility that challenges both his subjects and viewers.
An Unusual Dynamic
According to TechCrunch’s Amanda Silberling, who screened the film Thursday, Fielder presents Holmes with a distinctive challenge. Silberling characterized Fielder as a deadpan comedian who operates with his own enigmatic quality—arguably as strange and mysterious as Holmes herself. The month they spent together appears to have generated an increasingly surreal and metatextual narrative, with the filmmaker-subject relationship itself becoming central to the film’s structure rather than incidental to it.
Beyond Traditional Documentary
Earlier accounts of the Theranos collapse relied on interviews with former employees, investors, journalists covering the scandal, and prosecutors involved in the case. Holmes rarely participated in these tellings. Fielder’s access and directorial approach appears to position the film as something other than conventional documentary exposition or the structured narrative provided by previous dramatizations.
Box Office Performance and Market Context
The $15 million opening is exceptionally strong for a documentary, particularly one with a limited theatrical footprint. The 2,000 sellout screenings demonstrate demand that far exceeded typical occupancy rates for a specialty release.
The film’s performance has created challenging circumstances for other technology-focused films competing for audiences. Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning,” positioned as a follow-up to his 2010 film “The Social Network,” opened to just $5.5 million last weekend and has already fallen out of the top 10. Alex Gibney’s “Musk,” a four-hour documentary about Elon Musk, earned only $306,702 this weekend. Gibney’s film has faced headwinds from both its extended runtime and reported resistance from social media platforms against its distribution.
Critical Reception
The 99% score on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic represents exceptional critical consensus. For a documentary about a recent, widely covered event, achieving near-unanimous critical approval is unusual.
Audience demand in theatrical markets has been notable. In Manhattan, finding available seating required extensive effort due to widespread sellouts, with few screenings offering seats beyond front-row positions.
Why The Holmes Story Persists
The Theranos narrative contains multiple dimensions that sustain public interest. The business story involves a startup that achieved unprecedented valuation while its core technology failed to function. The legal dimension concluded with an 11-year sentence for fraud. The personal dimension explores how one individual’s ambitions, decisions, and presentation shaped outcomes affecting investors, employees, and patients.
Fielder’s involvement signals an approach distinct from conventional startup failure narratives. Rather than examining how business models collapse or how fraud was perpetrated, the film appears structured around the encounter between filmmaker and subject, making that relationship and the psychological dynamics it generates central to the storytelling itself.
The Documentary Moment
The success of “You Can See Everything” may reflect broader audience appetite for documentaries examining technology industry figures and events, provided they offer perspectives or access unavailable elsewhere. The simultaneous underperformance of “The Social Reckoning” and “Musk” suggests that audience interest in tech narratives is not automatic—execution, novelty of access, and directorial vision matter significantly.
Source: TechCrunch
Frequently Asked Questions
How many theaters is 'You Can See Everything' playing in?
The documentary is playing in 855 theaters, compared to 3,575 for the weekend's top film "Street Fighter." Despite the limited release, it generated 2,000 sellout screenings.
Who directed the documentary?
Nathan Fielder, creator of the HBO series "The Rehearsal," co-directed with Lance Oppenheim. Fielder's distinctive comedic and documentary style is central to the film's approach.
What makes this version of the Elizabeth Holmes story different from previous accounts?
Filmmakers secured access to Elizabeth Holmes and her family for one month before she went to prison—material that earlier books, podcasts, and documentaries did not have. Additionally, Fielder's approach focuses on the filmmaker-subject dynamic rather than conventional documentary exposition.
