Clayface won the weekend with $24 million, but You Can See Everything went up in week two. That almost never happens

Here's what happened at the box office from October 23 to 25, the weekend before Halloween. Every number is a Sunday studio estimate from Box Office Mojo and the AP unless I say otherwise. Finals land Monday evening.

Clayface: $24 million, an A minus, and a quiet miss

Warner Bros. and DC Studios opened Clayface to an estimated $24 million from 3,458 theaters, about $6,940 per screen, plus $19 million overseas for $43 million worldwide. Tracking had it at $25 million to $30 million, so it came in a touch light. The budget is reported at $44 million by the AP and Deadline, and about $40 million by TheWrap, which is small for a comic book movie and the reason this still works for the studio.

It's R-rated body horror, directed by James Watkins from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, with Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen. It's the third theatrical movie from the DC Studios run under James Gunn and Peter Safran. Critics are at about 75 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score is in the low 90s, and the CinemaScore is an A minus per the AP, The Hollywood Reporter and TheWrap. Deadline alone lists an A. (iHorror) An A minus for horror is very good, and with Halloween on Saturday I'd expect a healthy second weekend.

You Can See Everything: up 25 percent in weekend two

This is the number I keep staring at. A24's Elizabeth Holmes documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim made an estimated $19.5 million in its second weekend, up 25 percent from its opening, after A24 expanded it from 855 theaters to 2,655. (IndieWire) Two-week total: about $45.1 million, on a reported cost around $7 million. Movies don't go up in their second weekend. Documentaries never do. This one did, and the per-screen average, about $7,300, is still higher than Clayface's on three times the opening-week screens.

One correction to my own post from last Monday. I reported the opening as $15 million, which was the Sunday estimate. The final was $15.6 million. (Box Office Mojo) That's exactly the kind of Monday revision I warned about at the bottom of that post, so I'll take it. It also means the opening was the second-biggest ever for a documentary, behind Fahrenheit 9/11's $23.9 million, not merely the biggest since.

If you've been waiting because it wasn't playing near you, that excuse is gone. 2,655 theaters is a wide release.

Wildwood was not soft. Klara and the Sun was a flop

The briefing I was sent lumped these two together as "softer numbers." They're opposite stories.

Wildwood, Laika's stop-motion adaptation directed by Travis Knight and distributed by Fathom Entertainment, took third with about $11.6 million from 2,942 theaters. (The Hollywood Reporter) That's nearly double Laika's last opening, Missing Link at $5.9 million in 2019, and roughly even with Kubo and the Two Strings at $12.6 million. It has a 100 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes from 88 reviews and an A CinemaScore, which ties Laika's best. The problem is the reported $100 million budget, which no stop-motion movie has ever earned back in theaters. So: a great opening for Laika, and still probably a money-loser. Both things are true.

Klara and the Sun, which I previewed on Friday, is the other kind of story. Sony cut the release from more than 2,000 theaters to 880 after the reviews came in, and it made about $725,000, around $823 per screen, in 14th place. It sits at roughly 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 30 on Metacritic, the worst reviews of Taika Waititi's career, on a reported $20 million budget. (Gold Derby) Calling that soft is kind to the point of being wrong.

The rest of the top five, and last week's prediction

• Street Fighter: $8.6 million, down 72 percent, $46.9 million total. Last Monday I said a B minus CinemaScore means people don't come back. They didn't.
• Wicker: Black Bear's horror film with Olivia Colman opened fifth with about $5.75 million from 1,471 theaters.
• Further down: HYBE Cine Fest $4.5 million, Other Mommy $3.85 million, Sense and Sensibility $3.4 million, Whalefall $3.2 million, Verity $3.06 million and past $71 million total.

The whole weekend was somewhere between $95 million and $98 million depending on who's counting, up more than 20 percent on the same weekend last year. (Deadline) That's two healthy October weekends in a row.

At home: The Invite, and a Tulsa King correction

The Invite, Olivia Wilde's dinner-party comedy with Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, Penélope Cruz and Wilde herself, arrived on HBO Max on Friday and on HBO proper on Saturday. It's at 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 293 reviews, 107 minutes long. (Rotten Tomatoes) One thing the briefing left out: this isn't a streaming original. A24 released it in theaters in June and July after it premiered at Sundance, and it made somewhere north of $42 million worldwide on a budget around $15 million. If you missed it then, this is the easy way to catch up, and it's my pick for tonight.

The same briefing listed Tulsa King season 4 as a weekend premiere. It isn't. Season 4 premiered on Paramount+ on Friday, October 16, on a new Friday schedule, and this weekend was episode 2. Ten episodes, weekly, finale December 18, and season 5 is already filming. (TV Insider) Worth knowing if you're planning a binge rather than a weekly watch.

What I got sent, and what was wrong with it

• You Can See Everything's opening was $15.6 million final, not $15 million.
• Wildwood wasn't soft. It's Laika's best start in a decade. The budget is the problem.
• Klara and the Sun wasn't soft either. It was pulled from most of its theaters and made under a million dollars.
• Tulsa King didn't premiere this weekend. It premiered on the 16th.

Next weekend

Halloween falls on Saturday, and the slate is light on purpose: a horror comedy called Christmas at the Kringles, Liam Neeson in The Mongoose in limited release, an IMAX documentary about Everest, and Wicker adding screens. No trade has published a forecast yet, so the real story will be the holdovers: whether Clayface holds like an A minus horror movie should, and whether You Can See Everything can do the impossible twice. I'll be in a theater for one of those two. You can guess which.

Verified October 25, 2026. Weekend figures are Sunday studio estimates from Box Office Mojo, the AP, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter; theater counts differ by a few hundred between outlets. Budgets are as reported by those outlets, not confirmed by the studios. Clayface reviews from Rotten Tomatoes. The Invite details from Rotten Tomatoes and CBR. Tulsa King schedule from TV Insider.