Paramount’s action film “Street Fighter” topped the North American box office with a $31 million debut this weekend, while a documentary about tech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes stunned Hollywood with a $15 million opening, industry estimates showed on Sunday.
Based on the Capcom video game, “Street Fighter” follows super-powered martial artists competing in a global tournament who uncover a sinister conspiracy.
Andrew Koji, Noah Centineo and Callina Liang star in the third feature-length adaptation of the game, with Jason Momoa and rapper Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson also appearing.
The film is the first adaptation since production company Legendary acquired the movie rights in 2023. Its opening contrasted with the documentary’s strong showing on fewer than 1,000 screens across the United States and Canada.
Analyst David A Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research called the debut a “good opening” but said “critics’ reviews are weak and the audience score is soft”.
He said the film should recover its costs through ancillary markets while adding value to the franchise across film, television and games.
In second place, A24’s three-hour documentary “You Can See Everything”, co-directed by comedian Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, earned $15 million on just 855 screens, according to Exhibitor Relations.
The film follows Holmes at home in 2023 during the month before she began an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding investors in her medical testing company Theranos.
The scandal previously inspired a book, podcasts and the miniseries “The Dropout”, starring Amanda Seyfried.
Fielder places himself inside the action, continuing his approach of blurring documentary, social experiment and prank show.
A trailer showing Holmes asking Fielder, “Why would I deceive you?” sparked online memes, while a surprise Telluride Film Festival debut drew rave reviews.
Deadline described its opening as the second-best documentary debut ever, behind 2004’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”.
Universal and Blumhouse’s “Other Mommy” placed third with $8.4 million after leading last weekend with a $27.8 million debut. Jessica Chastain plays a sinister entity resembling the mother of the child it terrorises.
Fourth was 20th Century’s “Whalefall”, which opened with $8 million. The survival thriller follows a scuba diver swallowed by a whale, with an hour of oxygen to escape.
“At a cost of $60 million, the film won’t break even, even with relatively good business overseas”, Gross said.
Focus Features’ adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”, directed by Georgia Oakley and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and George MacKay, placed fifth with $7.5 million.
Rounding out the top 10 were “Verity” ($6.2 million), “Resident Evil” ($5.5 million), “Heart of the Beast” ($4.8 million), “Jailer 2” ($3.3 million) and “Forgotten Island” ($2.3 million).
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