Before Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim shot a single frame of “You Can See Everything,” Fielder made an unusual demand of studio A24: give us the money, leave us alone, and let us kill the whole film at any time. Oppenheim has now revealed that the so-called “kill switch” clause ended up changing everything about the buzzy Elizabeth Holmes documentary.
Nathan Fielder (Credits: Variety)
Nathan Fielder’s Kill Switch Deal for You Can See Everything
Speaking to IndieWire, Oppenheim explained that Fielder was deeply skeptical about the project from the start. The Theranos founder’s downfall had already been told many times over — in a hit podcast, a best-selling book, an Alex Gibney documentary and Hulu’s scripted series “The Dropout.” Fielder worried there was simply no fresh story left to find.
His solution was a provision in the A24 deal: the filmmakers would take the funding, work without interference, and if they failed to find something new, they could scrap the entire project and throw it away. A24 agreed.
Oppenheim said the clause transformed the production, especially as the clock ticked down — Fielder remained unsure the film would come together with just 34 days to go before Holmes was due to report to prison. Instead of working under studio pressure, the pair had room to explore purely out of curiosity.
How the Kill Switch Freed the Elizabeth Holmes Documentary
“This was the first time where I’ve ever been like, ‘Oh, we actually have room to explore something without any pressure of anyone looking over us,’” Oppenheim said, adding that he wished he could have that freedom on every project. Freed from the need to deliver a conventional film, the directors could essentially go fishing for a story — and see what surfaced.
The gamble paid off. “You Can See Everything,” which follows Holmes in the weeks before she began serving an 11-year prison sentence for defrauding Theranos investors, premiered as a surprise screening at the Telluride Film Festival in September 2026 and hit theaters on October 16, 2026, quickly becoming one of the most talked-about documentaries of the year.
Fielder has also discussed the provision in a separate interview, framing it as a matter of creative honesty: if there was nothing new to say, there would be no film. In an era when studios rarely hand filmmakers an exit ramp, the kill switch stands as one of the strangest — and most successful — deals in recent documentary filmmaking.
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Source: Variety — read the full story there.
