‘Clayface’ Wins the Weekend, James Bond’s Last Auditions, and Hollywood’s Oct. 19-25
A DC villain takes the weekend, a three-hour documentary grows in week two, and Netflix's record quarter still ends at a new low — in one scannable week.
The week of Oct. 19–25 delivered a second straight No. 1 to the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. and a documentary that grew in its second weekend. Netflix posted record numbers and still ended at a 52-week low, and James Bond narrowed to a handful of names.
| Story | Lane | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Clayface | Box office | DC's $44 million villain movie opens to about $24 million and No. 1. |
| You Can See Everything | Box office | A24's documentary rises 22–28 percent in its second weekend. |
| Wildwood | Box office | Laika's stop-motion feature opens to $11 million and an A CinemaScore. |
| Carrie | Streaming | Prime Video's Stephen King series debuts No. 1 on Nielsen and gets renewed. |
| Cliff Booth | Film | Tarantino screens the first 17 minutes at AFI Fest. |
| James Bond | Film | Final screen tests run this week; three names lead. |
| Tom Cruise | Awards | AFI hands him its 52nd Life Achievement Award. |
| Netflix | Industry | The quarter beats, the ad forecast drops, the stock hits a new low. |
| Skydance | Industry | Bloys builds his streaming team around HBO, and Paramount+'s originals head exits. |
| Anthropic | Industry | Elvis's rights holders sue over 274 songs used to train AI. |
| Citizen Kim | Celebrity | Kardashian's authorized biography arrives, with Paris Hilton a notable absence. |
| Jay-Z | Celebrity | The "Jay-Z 30" run ends at SoFi with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. |
Box office and streaming
1. ‘Clayface’ gives DC its first win since ‘Supergirl’ stumbled
DC Studios' Clayface opened to an estimated $24 million from 3,458 theaters, just under the studio's $25 million to $30 million projection.
It still took No. 1, and audiences handed it an A- CinemaScore — the same grade as James Gunn's Superman.
The film cost about $44 million, a fraction of Supergirl's $170 million, and it is DC Studios' first release since that film's $37.1 million opening.
The frame overall came in near $97.6 million, up 29 percent on the same weekend last year.
2. The Elizabeth Holmes documentary is doing something documentaries don't
A24 expanded You Can See Everything from 855 theaters to 2,655, and the three-hour documentary did not sag.
It grossed an estimated $19 million to $20 million in its second weekend, up 22 to 28 percent — a hold most wide releases would envy.
Ten days in, the film has about $45 million domestically, and some rivals now think $80 million is reachable.
PostTrak exits showed 79 percent definite recommends and a 50/50 split between men and women.
3. Laika's ‘Wildwood’ nearly doubles the studio's last opening
Wildwood, Laika's sixth stop-motion feature, opened to an estimated $11 million from 2,942 theaters through Fathom Entertainment.
That is nearly double what the studio's last film, Missing Link, managed in 2019.
Audiences gave it an A CinemaScore, and critics have it at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Travis Knight directed, with Carey Mulligan, Peyton Elizabeth Lee and Jacob Tremblay leading the voice cast.
4. ‘Carrie’ debuts at No. 1 and gets a second season the same day
Mike Flanagan's Carrie pulled 1.26 billion minutes in the week of Oct. 5–11, the most of any title in the U.S.
Prime Video renewed it for a second season the same day the chart landed.
Below opened second at 1.19 billion, East of Eden climbed 49 percent to 1.16 billion, and Ted Lasso's Oct. 7 finale lifted it to 943 million.
Nielsen counts U.S. viewing on television sets only, and the chart runs about two weeks behind the calendar.
Film and TV
5. Tarantino shows 17 minutes of ‘Cliff Booth’ without warning
At the end of a Q&A at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Friday, Quentin Tarantino offered the AFI Fest crowd a choice.
He could talk about his next film, or show them its first 17 minutes — and then he showed them.
It was the first public look at The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, written by Tarantino and directed by David Fincher.
Brad Pitt returns as the stuntman turned fixer, now in 1977; Netflix opens it in Imax Nov. 25 and streams it from Dec. 23.
6. Bond's final auditions are happening this week
Amazon MGM Studios is running final screen tests for the next James Bond this week, with at least four offers out.
Jack Lowden, Callum Turner and Josh O'Connor are expected among those testing.
Producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman, director Denis Villeneuve and casting director Nina Gold will make the call.
No date is set for an announcement, though most in the industry expect a name before the end of the year.
Awards
7. Tom Cruise gets the AFI Life Achievement Award
The American Film Institute's board named Tom Cruise the 52nd recipient of its Life Achievement Award on Wednesday.
AFI calls it the highest honor for a career in film, and it will be handed over at the Dolby Theatre on April 24, 2027.
Cruise is a three-time Oscar nominee whose films have earned nearly $13 billion worldwide, and he collected an honorary Oscar in 2025.
He is currently in theaters in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Digger, one of the fall's most divisive movies.
Industry and celebrity
8. Netflix beats the quarter and still gets punished
Netflix reported $12.9 billion in third-quarter revenue, up 11.8 percent, with profit of $3.664 billion and 87 cents a share.
All of it beat the company's own forecast, and none of it helped: the stock closed Tuesday at $68.69 and slid to a new 52-week low after hours.
Netflix now forecasts 11.5 percent growth for the fourth quarter and cut its 2026 ad revenue forecast to $2.7 billion from $3 billion.
Executives also used the shareholder letter to answer investor concerns about growth in viewing hours.
9. Skydance picks which streaming brand wins
Casey Bloys, co-CEO of Skydance's direct-to-consumer division, laid out his content team Friday, and it is almost entirely HBO's.
HBO's Francesca Orsi was promoted to president of drama series and films, and Sarah Aubrey adds Paramount+'s originals to HBO Max's.
Paramount+ head of originals Jane Wiseman is leaving, after a year running that slate.
HBO Max counts about 140 million subscribers worldwide to Paramount+'s 82 million; Bloys said the two keep running separately for now.
10. Elvis's rights holders sue Anthropic
The owners of Elvis Presley's music sued Anthropic on Friday, saying its AI models were trained on 274 of his songs.
The list includes "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Don't Be Cruel" and "A Little Less Conversation."
The suit, from Authentic Brands Group and other rights holders, seeks $150,000 per song.
It is the latest in a run of similar cases against Anthropic from Universal Music Publishing, ABKCO, Concord, BMG and Round Hill.
11. Kim Kardashian let a writer in for five years
Citizen Kim, Jonathan Van Meter's authorized biography of Kim Kardashian, is out, with excerpts already in Vanity Fair and the Daily Mail.
He spent about 50 hours with her going back to 2019, and she read the manuscript line by line.
She objected most to the way he wrote about her late father, and he cut two sentences at her request over her safety.
Paris Hilton canceled her interview 17 times, and Kanye West is not in the book.
12. Jay-Z closes his 30th-anniversary run at SoFi
Jay-Z closed "Jay-Z 30" on Saturday with the second of two SoFi Stadium shows, bringing out Too $hort and then Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.
The yearlong series started at the Roots Picnic in May and ran through three nights at Yankee Stadium.
The SoFi opener had featured Blue Ivy Carter, John Legend and DJ Khaled.
Near the end, Jay-Z told the crowd to question everything — the reviews, the ticket-sale reports, and what AI now puts in front of them.
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