‘Clayface’ Takes Shape As No. 1 With $23M-$25M; ‘You Can See Everything’s Wild Ride Continues With $19M – Box Office Update

FRIDAY PM: Right now, Warner Bros/DC’s R-rated Clayface is puffing its chest with a $9.5M Friday (including previews) and $23M-$25M opening weekend at 3,458 theaters, a solid start in the vicinity of other mid-October genre movies like Smile ($22.6M opening) and last year’s Black Phone 2 ($27.2M).

But it still remains to be seen what type of blood transfusion audiences give Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes this weekend as the A24 documentary, You Can See Everything, is coming on strong with a $5.8M Friday, +5% from a week ago, for what’s looking to be an awesome $19M+ second weekend after its wide expansion from 855 locations to 2,655. That will get the ten-day total to $44.6M. Some rivals think a $20M+ second weekend is still a possibility. But at a $19M second frame, You Can See Everything is +22% from its opening. Obsession was +39% in its second weekend (but that was during a Memorial Day weekend).

At this point in time, Clayface is keeping himself together for a No. 1 notch after great audience scores (93% on RT) and solid reviews (75%).

RelishMix says, “Convo runs positive for Clayface with a felling that James Gunn has finally cracked the code on how to make a villain movie, without Batman holding its hand. Fans see the trailer like a masterclass in restraint, ‘the zero-dialogue approach and letting dread do the talking is working.’ There’s affection bubbling up for Batman: The Animated Series with comments pitching Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow and Poison Ivy follow-ups. Viewers are also spinning Clayface against Spider-Man villain universe, ‘This as the blueprint nobody asked Sony to copy but should have.’ plus, ‘No Dialogue, only horror sounds, and some eerie song playing in the background, THIS is what a horror teaser should be like.’”

Fathom’s theatrical release of Laika’s stop-motion Wildwood is also coming in where it was expected to — at $11M+ in third place after a $4.2M Friday (including previews). That’s much better than the Portland, Oregeon studio’s previous movie, 2019’s The Missing Link ($5.9M) which United Artists/Annapurna handled at the time. Travis Knight’s previous Laika movie, Kubo and the Two Strings, released by Focus Features, opened to $12.6M in 2016 and legged out to $48M domestic.

Paramount/Legendary’s Street Fighter is fourth at 3,575 theaters with a second Friday of $2.7M and 3-day of $9.5M, -79%, for a ten-day cume of $47.8M.

In No. 5 is Black Bear’s $2.5M domestic acquisition of period sex comedy Wicker with a first Friday (plus previews) of $2.4M and a 3-day of $6M+ at 1,471 locations. This is a great start for Black Bear and a female upscale movie. Audience score on RT is excellent at 94% on par with critical score of 93%.

Outside the top 5 is Sony/Spyglass/TSG’s Klara and the Sun from Taika Waititi and starring Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams. The movie isn’t looking good at a $300K Friday at 880 locations for what’s looking like a 3-day of $900K. Critics refuse to be emotionally moved with 55 reviews at 23% Rotten.

UPDATED FRIDAY AM after Thursday PM exclusive: Warner Bros/DC’s Clayface came in exactly where we spotted it – at $3.5M in previews. We understand that the fanboys who showed up last night enjoyed it too with 4 1/2 stars on PostTrak and a 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Meanwhile, A24’s You Can See Everything ends its first week with $25.6M to Street Fighter‘s $38.3M.

The three hour Nathan Fielder-Lance Oppenheim directed documentary bested Street Fighter and was the No. 1 movieon Monday ($2.5M), Wednesday ($2.6M) and yesterday ($2.2M). Tuesday was strong with $2.6M.

Black Bear’s Sundance pick-up Wicker is off to a solid specialty start with $620K in previews, and that’s with 92% reviews and 93% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Pic is booked at 1,471 locations Previews are above Conclave ($491K, $6.6M opening), not far from Social Reckoning ($617K previews, $5M opening), and similar to The Roses, another Olivia Colman movie ($606K, $6.2M opening).

Taika Waititi’s feature take of Klara and the Sun is in limited release this weekend in under 1,000 locations. Previews were shiny with $85K at 782 sites from showtimes that began at 4PM.

Week’s grosses:

EXCLUSIVE: Peter Safran and James Gunn’s DC entry into lower-budget genre movies, Clayface, is off to a solid start in previews Thursday night with an estimated $3.5 million, if not more.

Domestic weekend forecasts are between $20M-$25M, which if that occurs would deliver the newly combined Paramount-Warner Bros its second back-to-back No. 1 opener at the box office after last weekend’s Street Fighter($31M).

Previews started at 2 p.m. today for the James Watkins-directed Clayface, which though based on the Batman villain is a stand-alone story about babyfaced Hollywood actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), who in reaching for the stars falls short, kisses the wrong girl at the party, and — oops — there goes his face. The screenplay by Mike Flanagan in December 2024 got Gunn and Safran excited, and it was off to the races to make this movie, which is coming in at a net production cost of $44M before P&A, shot in the UK.

In regards to preview comps, Clayface‘s money is higher than the R-rated Sony/Marvel movie Kraven the Hunter ($2M previews, $11M dismal opening), and not far from the pre-Covid PG-13 DC spinoff Birds of Prey ($4M previews, $33M opening). Next to horror films, Clayface‘s cash is similar to Blumhouse Atomic Monster’s Other Mommy ($3.6M previews, $27.8M opening) and ahead of 2022’s Smile ($2M previews, $22.6M opening).

The hope is that the DC movie isn’t frontloaded tonight, as all eyes are on the potential hold of A24 documentary You Can See Everything following its great midweek business and fantastic $15.6M opening last weekend. The documentary co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim about Theranos architect Elizabeth Holmes expands to 2,600 locations Friday after bowing in 855 sites.

Clayface glides into the weekend with a 76% certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes critics score, which is higher than The Flash (63%), Supergirl (52% Rotten), Joker Folie à Deux (31%), Shazam: Fury of the Gods (49%), James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (33%) and almost as good as Birds of Prey (79% certified fresh).

Note this isn’t the first time in DC movie history that it has ventured into low- to midsized-budget fare. In the early aughts there was DC/Vertigo’s The Losers, in 2010, which cost $25M before P&A and opened to $9.4M and finaled at $23.5M domestic. There was also the Josh Brolin-Megan Fox 2010 fantasy western Jonah Hex, which bombed with a $5.3M opening, $10.5M stateside final next to its $47M production cost. And there was the Wachowskis’ R-rated 2005 feature take of the DC Vertigo title V for Vendetta, which yielded a No. 1 $25.6M North American opening off a $50M production cost. Its final domestic take was $70.5M, and $134.7M global.

We’re hearing that previews for the Fathom release of Laika’s stop-motion animated title Wildwood is around $1M. The hope is that the Travis Knight-directed movie can break double-digits in its opening. The 100% certified fresh critical score and 98% with audiences on RT will certainly help.

We’ll have more preview grosses in Friday AM.

Tonight’s numbers are per distribution sources.