The Dropout viewership jumps 186% as You Can See Everything opens to $15m

Viewers are returning to an old story about Elizabeth Holmes to get ready for a new one.

Viewership for The Dropout, the 2022 Hulu series starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes, rose 186% in September compared with August after the first teaser for You Can See Everything was released on 6 September, Variety reported as an exclusive. The lift continued into October. Viewing rose another 92% during the week of 12 October on the week before, in the days ahead of the film’s 16 October premiere, according to The Guardian.

The book behind that earlier series is moving again too. Bad Blood, journalist John Carreyrou’s 2018 account of Theranos, has returned to the New York Times bestseller list amid buzz for the new film.

You Can See Everything is a three-hour film from A24 directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. It opened to $15 million in North America on 855 screens. That is the best opening weekend for a documentary in more than two decades, since Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004, and the best opening for any film on fewer than 1,000 screens since Borat opened to $26.5 million in 2006.

The opening included 2,000 sold-out screenings over the weekend. The film was made largely in secret in 2023, in the month before Holmes reported to prison to serve an 11-year sentence for fraud.

For anyone unfamiliar with the case, Holmes founded the blood-testing company Theranos and was at one point described as the youngest female self-made billionaire in the United States, worth $4.5 billion by age 30. She left Theranos in 2018 after Carreyrou’s reporting revealed that she and others knew the company’s devices could not accurately test blood samples. The company collapsed shortly afterwards.

What makes this stand out is the loop between screens. A cinema release is now pulling audiences back to streaming and bookshops, rather than the other way around.

Awards planning is already organised. A24 will submit You Can See Everything for Oscar consideration for cinematography, score, director, costume design, production design, and makeup and hairstyling, alongside best documentary. Seyfried will be campaigned for best supporting actress. The film holds a 99 on Metacritic.

The rollout continues. The film will expand to at least 2,600 screens in its second domestic weekend, domestic meaning the United States and Canada, and will premiere in Australia on 12 November and in the United Kingdom on 20 November.