Clayface Box Office: DC Horror Film Opens No. 1 With $24M

Clayface is the No. 1 movie in America. The DC Studios film, released by Warner Bros. Pictures, opened to an estimated $24 million in the U.S. and Canada over the Oct. 23-25, 2026, weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. It narrowly beat A24's documentary You Can See Everything, while Laika's animated Wildwood was the weekend's biggest surprise. Here is how the weekend shook out and what it means for the rest of the fall.

Weekend box office top five (Oct. 23-25, 2026)

Estimates from Box Office Mojo as of Oct. 26; Wildwood distributor per Gold Derby. Final numbers can change slightly on Monday.

What we know about Clayface's opening

Clayface is an R-rated horror origin story for the Batman villain, directed by James Watkins from a script by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, with Tom Rhys Harries as actor Matt Hagen, according to Rotten Tomatoes. Key numbers from the opening:

• Domestic opening: $24 million from 3,458 theaters, an average of about $6,940 per location (Box Office Mojo).
• Worldwide: about $43 million, including $19 million from 76 international markets (Deadline).
• Budget: Deadline put the net production cost at about $44 million, before marketing costs.
• Audience grade: A- on CinemaScore (Gold Derby).
• Critics: "Certified Fresh," with a critics score in the mid-70s on Rotten Tomatoes and a 59 on Metacritic.

Why the opening matters for DC

Gold Derby notes that Clayface is the third theatrical release in James Gunn and Peter Safran's DC Universe, after Supergirl underperformed this summer. Pre-release tracking had the film at $22 million to $30 million domestically, so $24 million landed inside that range, toward the low end. Deadline said the worldwide start was a little under the roughly $45 million that had been hoped for, but called it solid for a film at that budget, especially given strong audience scores.

The film's modest cost is the key point. Opening at roughly its reported production cost, with strong audience grades, puts the film in a comfortable position. How well it holds over Halloween weekend is the next test.

The rest of the top five

You Can See Everything keeps climbing

A24's You Can See Everything, a three-hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, did something rare: its gross went up 25% in its second weekend, to $19.5 million, as it expanded from 855 to 2,655 theaters (Gold Derby). It has earned about $45.1 million in 10 days, an unusually large total for a documentary. International releases begin in November, Deadline reported.

Wildwood beats expectations

Laika's stop-motion fantasy Wildwood, directed by Travis Knight, opened to $11.6 million against tracking that topped out around $10 million. It earned an A CinemaScore and a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critics score at the time of Gold Derby's report, and roughly doubled the opening of Laika's previous film, 2019's Missing Link.

Street Fighter and Wicker

Paramount's Street Fighter fell about 72% in its second weekend to $8.6 million, for a domestic total of about $46.9 million. Wicker, a romance starring Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, opened fifth with about $5.75 million, which Gold Derby called the best opening yet for distributor Black Bear.

Why moviegoing is up this fall

The overall market was strong for late October. All films combined grossed about $98.3 million over the weekend, and the top 10 earned about $87.5 million, up 26.6% from the same weekend in 2025, according to Box Office Mojo's weekend comparison. The variety helped: a superhero horror film, a documentary, a family-friendly animated feature and an adult romance all drew crowds at once.

What's next at the box office

• Halloween weekend (Oct. 30-Nov. 1): Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. Deadline called the holiday frame a "dead zone" for U.S. moviegoing and suggested You Can See Everything could move up to No. 1.
• Early November: Deadline expects Warner Bros. Animation's The Cat in the Hat to lead the first weekend of November.
• Holdovers to watch: Whether Clayface's A- grade turns into a small second-weekend drop, and whether Wildwood can keep building as a family option.

Halloween night also brings a possible World Series Game 7. Follow that in our World Series guide, and remember that clocks fall back on Nov. 1.

The bottom line

Clayface gave DC Studios a No. 1 opening on a modest budget, while You Can See Everything and Wildwood showed audiences are turning out for very different kinds of movies. For more on what's trending in movies, TV and music, visit our Entertainment section.