Paramount's video game reboot leads a crowded weekend, while A24's Elizabeth Holmes documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim eyes a rare nonfiction breakout.
Paramount's "Street Fighter" reboot is tracking for an opening weekend between $25 million and $35 million across roughly 3,500 North American screens, according to Variety, which would put it comfortably at No. 1 over a weekend crowded with three other new releases.
The film, directed by Kitao Sakurai and starring Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji, is the third big-screen take on Capcom's fighting game franchise. The first, with Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1994, cleared $100 million worldwide. The second, 2009's "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li," barely scraped past $12.8 million against a $50 million budget. This version cost $82 million, co-financed by Legendary and Capcom, with Paramount handling distribution only. That math means a No. 1 debut alone won't settle the question. The film needs legs, and overseas it's projected at around $35 million from 65 markets.
A24's documentary bet
The weekend's real talking point might be smaller. A24's "You Can See Everything," the Elizabeth Holmes documentary that Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim spent more than three years making in secret, is aiming for $7 million to $8 million from just 800 theatres. That's a tiny footprint compared to "Street Fighter," but a strong per-screen number would matter more than the raw figure here.
The film arrives with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes and reviews calling it a one-of-a-kind watch. It unveiled at Telluride in September with no advance word, which is part of why exhibitors think it could be the rare documentary breakout. For context, Amazon MGM's Melania Trump documentary "Melania" opened to $7.1 million from 1,778 theatres earlier this year, the biggest start for a non-music documentary in over a decade. "You Can See Everything" is chasing a similar number from under half the screen count.
Whalefall and Sense and Sensibility fill out the weekend
Disney's "Whalefall," the Austin Abrams survival thriller about a diver swallowed by a sperm whale, should land second with $10 million to $12 million from 3,065 venues. At a $60 million budget, it too needs to hold rather than front-load its run. Reviews have mostly been kind, with one critic calling it amusing genre pulp.
Focus Features' new "Sense and Sensibility," starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles, is projected at $5 million to $8 million from 2,436 screens, positioned as the counterprogramming option against two male-skewing action titles. It's the studio's third Austen adaptation after "Pride and Prejudice" in 2005 and "Emma" in 2020, and it follows Ang Lee's 1995 version, which pulled seven Oscar nominations and $135 million worldwide.
None of this arrives in a vacuum. October has been patchy so far, with Tom Cruise's "Digger" and Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Reckoning" both flopping while "Verity" and "Other Mommy" turned in modest results. The bar isn't high. Last October was the worst in three decades. Final numbers land Sunday.
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