Clayface Opening Weekend Box Office: $24M DC Horror Win, Doc Surge & Fighter Crash
The Clayface opening weekend box office result is in, and DC Studios' strangest gamble of the year just paid off. The R-rated body-horror take on the Batman villain opened to an estimated $24 million in North America, beating every pre-release tracker expectation and handing Warner Bros. its second straight weekend win after Street Fighter. Even more remarkable is what happened in second place: A24's three-hour Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything actually grew in its second weekend — a feat almost unheard of for a documentary. Here is the full Clayface weekend box office story, the documentary phenomenon, and the brutal second-weekend collapse of Street Fighter.
Clayface Opening Weekend Box Office: How DC's $40M Horror Gamble Won the Weekend
Clayface took in $10.4 million on Friday, October 23, including $3.5 million from Thursday previews, across 3,458 North American theaters. Early weekend estimates from trade trackers put the three-day total at $24 million to $25 million — comfortably ahead of the $20 million to $26 million pre-release tracking range and above where advance ticket sales had pointed. All box office figures in this article are trade-tracker estimates, not studio-official numbers, and final weekend totals arrive on Monday.
What makes the opening genuinely impressive is the audience response. Clayface earned an A- CinemaScore — the same grade as Superman — a rare mark for a horror film, a genre where B and C grades are the norm. Rotten Tomatoes shows 76% from critics and a striking 93% from audiences, and Deadline reports that 73% of ticket buyers were between 18 and 34. The crowd is young, enthusiastic, and exactly the audience that drives horror legs through Halloween week.
Remarkably, Clayface did all of this without a single IMAX screen — Street Fighter had IMAX booked for two weeks — yet premium large-format screens still delivered close to half of the gross. The film also gives the newly combined Paramount-Warner Bros. entity back-to-back No. 1 openings, following Street Fighter's $31 million debut last weekend.
The stakes were modest by superhero standards, which is precisely the point. Clayface cost a reported $40 million to $44 million to produce — a fraction of a typical comic-book blockbuster — and one pre-release analysis put its worldwide break-even point between $80 million and $100 million. After a difficult 2026 for Warner Bros. that included busts like Digger, Supergirl (which finished its run at just $125.8 million worldwide) and Practical Magic 2, a profitable mid-budget genre hit is exactly the reset DC Studios needed.
Clayface Cast, Story and the R-Rating: Inside DC's First Horror Film
Clayface is the third film in the DC Universe (DCU) and part of its Chapter One: Gods and Monsters slate. It is also the DCU's first R-rated theatrical film and, in James Gunn's words, DC Studios' first-ever foray into horror. The film is rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, some nudity and brief drug use.
Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt Hagen, a Gotham street kid turned Hollywood leading man whose meteoric rise is cut short when a local crime boss leaves him horribly disfigured. Abandoned by his team, Hagen seeks out a cutting-edge treatment from a scientist played by Naomi Ackie that miraculously restores his former looks — but loosens his grip on reality and spirals him into all-consuming revenge. David Dencik plays the mobster, Max Minghella a Gotham detective, with Eddie Marsan, Nancy Carroll and Joshua James in support.
James Watkins (Eden Lake, The Woman in Black, Speak No Evil) directs from a screenplay by horror master Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini (Drive), from a story by Flanagan. Flanagan had publicly campaigned to make a Clayface film for years before pitching it to the newly formed DC Studios in March 2023; scheduling kept him from directing, but his fingerprints are all over the finished film. Matt Reeves and Lynn Harris produce alongside DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran. The film premiered at the Hollywood Legion Theater in Los Angeles on October 13, 2026, opened internationally from October 21, and arrived in US theaters on October 23 after moving from its original September 11 date. Its runtime is 1 hour 48 minutes.
The reception suggests the horror-first approach worked where bigger swings failed. Gunn has compared the film to The Fly (1986) rather than anything campy, and critics have called it the scariest movie ever made from a DC property. If the Halloween hold is strong, Clayface could become the template for DC's future: smaller, stranger, genre-specific films built around second-tier characters instead of $200 million spectacles.
You Can See Everything: The Documentary That Grew in Its Second Weekend
If Clayface is the weekend's headline, You Can See Everything is its miracle. A24's nearly three-hour documentary about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, made by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim over four years on a budget under $10 million, expanded from 855 theaters to 2,655 in its second weekend — and went UP. Its Friday gross of $6.1 million was up 17.6% on its opening Friday and stands as the biggest second Friday ever for a documentary, beating Fahrenheit 9/11's $5.3 million record.
Early estimates put the documentary's second weekend at $19 million to $20 million, a rise of roughly 28% on its $15.8 million opening — itself the biggest documentary debut in 22 years. That takes its domestic total to around $45 million in ten days, making it the highest-grossing documentary of the past decade by a growing margin and the sixth-highest-grossing non-music documentary of all time in the US. Some in the industry now see an $80 million domestic finish for a three-hour documentary — a sentence nobody would have written a month ago.
The closest precedent is Borat, which opened in 2006 to $26.8 million from 837 screens, expanded to 2,566 screens in weekend two for $28.2 million, and finished at $128.5 million domestic. You Can See Everything probably will not go that far, but the pattern — a smaller opening, a massive expansion, and a second weekend bigger than the first — is the same rare box office shape. The film follows Holmes in the weeks before she began her 11-year federal prison sentence, and its word of mouth has turned it into a genuine cultural event rather than a niche release.
Street Fighter Crashes 79% as Wildwood Opens Soft and Wicker Stalls
The weekend's casualty is Street Fighter. Just seven days after winning the box office with $31 million domestic and $51.1 million worldwide, Kitao Sakurai's Capcom reboot collapsed roughly 79% in its second frame to an estimated $8.4 million to $9.5 million. The drop confirms what the first weekend's soft audience scores hinted at: the fighting-game faithful showed up on day one, and almost nobody else followed.
Laika's stop-motion fantasy Wildwood opened in third place with $4.28 million on Friday from 2,942 theaters, heading for an $11 million to $11.2 million weekend — a soft but typically Laika-shaped result for the studio's handcrafted animation. The film follows a girl who enters an enchanted forest after her brother is abducted, with Carey Mulligan and Jacob Tremblay leading the voice cast.
Elsewhere, the Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgard satire Wicker took a higher Friday gross than Street Fighter but is projected for a smaller $5.5 million weekend, while Helen Mirren's chamber thriller A Talent for Murder played to strong reviews in a smaller footprint. Klara and the Sun, meanwhile, barely registered. The overall domestic weekend is expected to land well below last weekend's roughly $101.6 million — but with two genuine success stories at the top, nobody in Hollywood is complaining.
Weekend Box Office Scorecard: October 23-25, 2026
| Film | Weekend (est.) | Theaters | Total So Far | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clayface | $24-25M (opening) | 3,458 | ~$24-25M domestic | No. 1; A- CinemaScore; horror hit on $40M budget |
| You Can See Everything | $19-20M (week 2, +28%) | 2,655 | ~$45M domestic | Doc phenomenon; biggest 2nd Friday ever for a doc |
| Wildwood | $11-11.2M (opening) | 2,942 | ~$11M domestic | Soft Laika opening, typical for the studio |
| Street Fighter | $8.4-9.5M (week 2, -79%) | 3,575 | ~$40M domestic | Brutal collapse after $31M opening |
| Wicker | ~$5.5M (opening) | — | ~$5.5M domestic | Niche satire, limited breakout |
Related Coverage on Showbiz Daily
Catch up on our recent Hollywood box office coverage: Street Fighter's opening weekend box office win at $31 million, with the You Can See Everything doc shock and the Whalefall flop; Street Fighter's release date, cast, runtime and pre-release box office tracking; Other Mommy's $27.5 million opening weekend win and The Social Reckoning's flop; The Exorcist: Martyrs trailer and release date, plus Mike Flanagan's 2027 horror plan; and Hollywood's wild weekend when Verity topped the charts and Digger crashed.
FAQs
What is the Clayface opening weekend box office collection?
Clayface opened to an estimated $24 million to $25 million in North America from 3,458 theaters, after a $10.4 million Friday including $3.5 million in Thursday previews. The figures are early trade-tracker estimates; final totals arrive on Monday.
Who plays Clayface in the 2026 DC movie?
Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, also known as Clayface, in DC Studios' 2026 horror film. Naomi Ackie plays the scientist behind his treatment, David Dencik the mobster who disfigures him, and Max Minghella a Gotham detective.
Is Clayface connected to the DC Universe?
Yes. Clayface is the third film in the DC Universe (DCU) and part of its Chapter One: Gods and Monsters slate. It is the DCU's first R-rated theatrical film and its first horror film, produced by James Gunn, Peter Safran, Matt Reeves and Lynn Harris.
How much did You Can See Everything make in its second weekend?
You Can See Everything made an estimated $19 million to $20 million in its second weekend, up about 28% on its $15.8 million opening, after expanding from 855 to 2,655 theaters. Its domestic total reached around $45 million, making it the highest-grossing documentary of the past decade.
Why did Street Fighter drop so much in its second weekend?
Street Fighter fell roughly 79% in its second weekend to an estimated $8.4 million to $9.5 million, after opening to $31 million domestic. The steep drop suggests the opening was driven mainly by the fighting-game fanbase, with weak word of mouth limiting broader audiences.
When is the Clayface movie release date in Pakistan?
Clayface opened in US theaters on October 23, 2026, with international rollout beginning October 21. Pakistani release dates and local listings should be confirmed with local cinemas, as international dates vary by territory.