More is obviously better when it comes to box office, but winning is a complicated game in Hollywood. It’s not always just about the big number reported every weekend. Sometimes it’s about the little numbers that lead up to and play into that big number, and for one movie this weekend, those little numbers are telling a really exciting story.
The clear number one at the box office this weekend is Street Fighter. The video game adaptation is currently estimated to take home more than $30,000,000 during its debut, but it’s the Nathan Fielder led documentary You Can See Everything that has the best story to tell. Documentaries, at least those that don’t involve a Taylor Swift concert or a Michael Moore expose, aren’t typically the type to get people to the theater. More often than not, they find their audience on streaming, but You Can See Everything is looking like the rare documentary that is going to break through.
The A24 flick, which is directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, was reportedly made for around $7,000,000 and is now poised to take home $15,000,000 this weekend. That’s well beyond the estimates we’ve seen the last few weeks, and it’s a spectacular number compared to the number of screens it’s actually showing on. Street Fighter, as a comparison, opened on over 3500 screens this weekend. You Can See Everything, on the other hand, opened on just 855. That means Street Fighter is going to make between $8,000 and $9,000 per screen this weekend, while You Can See Everything is going to make between $17,000 and $18,000.
You can check out the full weekend estimates after the Friday and Saturday grosses according to The Numbers…
Title | Weekend Gross | Domestic Gross | Last Week | Theaters |
1. Street Fighter | $31,000,000 | $31,000,000 | N/A | 3,575 |
2. You Can See Everything | $15,000,000 | $15,000,000 | N/A | 855 |
3. Other Mommy | $8,350,000 | $44,854,000 | 1 | 3,370 |
4. Whalefall | $8,000,000 | $8,000,000 | N/A | 3,065 |
5. Sense And Sensibility | $7,250,000 | $7,250,000 | N/A | 2,545 |
6. Verity | $6,212,000 | $66,092,000 | 2 | 3,072 |
7. Resident Evil | $5,500,000 | $148,458,000 | 3 | 2,705 |
8. Heart Of The Beast | $4,830,000 | $58,318,000 | 4 | 3,049 |
9. Jailer 2 | $3,270,000 | $3,270,000 | N/A | 800 |
10. Forgotten Island | $2,250,000 | $35,107,000 | 6 | 2,149 |
I know I’ve glossed over Street Fighter here a bit, but those involved with the movie should do at least some celebrating. With a production budget rumored to be in the $80M range, it has a long ways to go before it’ll turn a profit, but winning a weekend at the box office is not easy. Every single victory is hard fought, and there are clearly a lot of people who wanted to see the new adaptation and are largely finding it dumb but also fun. If it can only drop in the 50% or so range next weekend and pick up some healthy chunks in foreign markets, it could wind up producing enough to get a sequel.
As for the rest of the box office, there wasn’t a ton of good news to go around. Other Mommy had the drop off everyone expected thanks to the poor reviews and poor word of mouth. Whalefall and Sense and Sensibility both made the top five but weren’t able to top $10M, which is probably the numbers they needed to feel like solid hits. The Social Reckoning and Digger also continued to disappoint, as neither made the top ten.
It’ll be interesting to see what A24 decides to do with You Can See Everything, which is getting fantastic reviews and responses. These numbers are the type that normally convince a studio to expand wider, but given the genre and the three hour runtime, A24 may decide to stick to less screens and a more specialized rollout. Regardless, this weekend was great news for the film, even if it lost the weekend.
