A24 Just Turned Elizabeth Holmes Into Gen Z’s ‘Borat’

As Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat might say, very nice.

A24’s You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder’s 174-minute hybrid documentary about convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, has become one of the fall’s biggest box-office stories — opening with $15 million from just 855 screens, for a per-screen average of more than $17,500. That’s the largest opening on fewer than 1,000 screens since Borat in 2006 — and it drew an overwhelmingly younger audience. Seventy percent of You Can See Everything ticket buyers were under 35.

“The comps here really feel like this is for Gen Z, what Borat was for millennials,” says Sean McNulty. “Nathan Fielder has really tapped into [the zeitgeist], and his popularity has certainly been building up here for a little while.”

Co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the 30-year-old filmmaker behind Primetime, You Can See Everything was officially dated after its surprise premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in September; a trailer for the movie, released in conjunction with that debut, featured an inscrutable Holmes talking to a credulous Fielder and quickly went viral.

“Watching the trailer, there was a sense that you’re not supposed to be seeing this,” says Christopher Rosen, who notes the intimacy at play in the teaser separated You Can See Everything from several other pieces of media focused on the Theranos founder, who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. The movie tracks Holmes’ final days of freedom.

“There was a huge gotta-see factor with this,” adds Chris, “and she’s famous enough — or infamous enough — that normal people wanted to see this story; the movie expanded well beyond the Letterboxd crowd.”

Now the question remains: How far can You Can See Everything go? Borat grossed $128 million in North America and more than $262 million worldwide. Chris says it’s doubtful You Can See Everything will reach those heights, but it’s also “the story of the fall.”

“This is something that you have to see in the movie theater,” adds Chris, who thinks the movie could reach $100 million. “Everybody’s talking about it. I think it’s gonna play for a long time.”