'Clayface' Takes No. 1 as Nathan Fielder's Holmes Doc Keeps Growing

The $44 million DC horror film opened to about $24 million, and the Elizabeth Holmes documentary grew 25% in its second weekend.

A Batman villain whose face won't hold its shape took No. 1 at the box office this weekend. Right behind him is a three-hour Elizabeth Holmes documentary that comedian Nathan Fielder once negotiated the right to throw away.

Warner Bros.' "Clayface" took in about $24 million for the weekend, according to Sunday estimates from Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter. A24's "You Can See Everything," which widened to 2,655 theaters, made an estimated $19.5 million in its second weekend, 25% more than its first, Deadline reported.

So the monster has the top spot, and the documentary is the one that's growing.

"Clayface" is DC on a diet. Deadline puts its net production cost at $44 million and describes it as DC's move into cheaper genre films under James Gunn and Peter Safran. Variety called a Batman villain a far more niche pick for a feature than Superman or Supergirl. Then there's this summer's "Supergirl," which cost $170 million and opened to $37.1 million, The Hollywood Reporter noted.

Before it opened, most critics liked "Clayface." The studio's own initial projection was $25 million to $30 million, The Hollywood Reporter says, so about $24 million lands just under it. Audiences were warmer than critics. Deadline reported an A- CinemaScore, the same grade "Superman" got, while "Supergirl" drew a B-.

The crowd skewed young: 18- to 34-year-olds made up 73% of ticket buyers, per Deadline. And for a movie about an actor working in Coast City, DC's stand-in for Los Angeles, the top theater in the country was AMC Burbank, which had taken in $51,000 by Deadline's Saturday-morning count.

The documentary started small. It debuted to about $15 million in just 855 theaters. The Hollywood Reporter noted that no release in under 1,000 theaters had opened bigger since "Borat" in 2006.

Its second Friday ran 11% ahead of its first, Deadline reported. A24 is also entering the film for best picture, not only best documentary feature, Variety reported.

And it nearly didn't exist. In early 2023, a deal between Holmes and A24 had collapsed weeks before she was due to start an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors, co-director Lance Oppenheim told IndieWire. Fielder went to A24 asking for money, no interference and the right to kill the project at any point. His pitch, as Oppenheim told it to IndieWire, ended with "we could throw it in the garbage can." A24 agreed.

Fielder put his condition even more bluntly to Wired, Variety reported: "we need the ability to deliver nothing to you guys if it doesn't work out."

Seven people went into the Del Mar beach cottage where Holmes lived with her partner, Billy Evans, and their two small kids, Oppenheim told IndieWire. They had 34 days before she reported to prison. Talk of the kill switch faded once the directors saw that their arguments over what they were watching, down to someone whisking eggs, were the movie itself.

Fielder told Wired that if they'd had to pull the plug, "it would sort of be a relief to me," Variety reported. By Deadline's math, the film he was ready to walk away from has made about $45.1 million in its first 10 days.

Source: Variety, retrieved October 25, 2026. Other sources: The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, IndieWire, Variety (2).