A documentary breaks Alamo’s pre-sale pattern
Alamo Drafthouse’s advance sales have a new outlier. You Can See Everything, the A24 documentary about Elizabeth Holmes directed by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, is the chain’s No. 2 pre-sale title, behind only Disney/Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday, which opens on Dec. 18.
That slot is more notable than it sounds. Deadline’s exclusive look at the Sony-owned circuit’s ticketing data shows the film is the strongest A24 pre-seller and the strongest documentary pre-seller Alamo has ever recorded. The documentary opens limited on Oct. 16.
The film behind the ticket demand
You Can See Everything runs three hours and was shot in secrecy in early 2023. It follows Holmes before her federal prison term, as she and partner Billy Evans talk about reviving the Theranos blood-testing idea. Fielder also pushes Evans; Deadline notes a Los Angeles screening ended with a Q&A moderated by Bill Hader, and the film is 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes from 20 reviews.
There is also a director track record in play. Oppenheim’s narrative feature Primetime, with Robert Pattinson as To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, has crossed $35 million stateside to date, giving exhibitors another reason to treat this documentary as a commercial event rather than festival filler.
Why the ranking matters
A pre-sale chart at one exhibitor is not a national box office forecast. Alamo’s audience leans toward event programming and filmmaker Q&As, so a three-hour true-crime documentary will over-index there. But the ranking is still a demand signal worth reading.
- It separates intent from interest. People are paying in advance, not just adding the title to a watchlist.
- It positions a specialty doc against a Marvel tentpole. The No. 2 slot next to Doomsday makes the documentary feel like an event, not a quiet limited release.
- It gives exhibitors an expansion cue. Strong pre-sales can justify holding screens longer and moving the film to prime evening showtimes.
What to watch next
The opening per-screen average on Oct. 16 is the number to track. A high average would point to quick expansion, while a soft one would suggest the pre-sale interest is concentrated in Alamo’s core film-buff locations. Media planners can also use this early ranking as social proof: “No. 2 behind only Avengers: Doomsday” is a cleaner campaign line than a traditional review quote.
Source: Deadline
