Obsession Sets a 17-Year Box Office Record

Obsession just made box office history — and it did it on a budget that most Hollywood productions spend on craft services.

The horror film from director Curry Barker hit number one at the box office on Monday, making it the cheapest movie to top the charts in 17 years. The last film to do it? Paranormal Activity in 2009 — a film that famously cost $15,000, was shot in a single house, and became one of the most unlikely blockbusters in cinema history. Obsession’s reported budget of $750,000 is higher than that, but in the landscape of wide-release studio films, it’s essentially the same category: a miracle.

On Monday alone, Obsession earned $2.9 million, pushing its worldwide total to $27 million. That’s after opening to $16.1 million domestically over the weekend — good enough for third place behind the Michael biopic ($26.1 million) and The Devil Wears Prada 2 ($18 million), but the highest new opening of the weekend and well above pre-release tracking that had it topping out around $15 million. Add in $7 million overseas and a $2.6 million Wednesday preview haul on premium large format screens, and the numbers tell a story that’s hard to believe.

Obsession was produced for less than $1 million. Focus Features acquired it out of TIFF for a reported $14 million — an aggressive bet that is paying off in a very big way.

The Movie Everyone’s Talking About

The film follows Bear (Michael Johnston), a guy with a crush who uses a mysterious toy called the “One Wish Willow” to wish that his friend Nikki loved him “more than anyone in the world.” As you might expect, the results are not what he had in mind. Inde Navarrette plays Nikki — and the performance has become the story within the story. She goes from overbearing romantic to full psychopath, sometimes within the same scene, and audiences and critics alike have been floored by it. The film holds a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes from both critics and audiences, and earned a rare A- CinemaScore — the kind of score that tells you word of mouth isn’t just going to be good, it’s going to be relentless.

/Film called it a “confident crowd-pleaser.” IndieWire’s review out of TIFF noted the film’s chilling relatability — that it dares to challenge men in the audience to ask whether they’re capable of doing what Bear does, effectively stripping away another person’s autonomy. That discomfort is clearly landing. Awards conversations for Navarrette have already started, which is almost unheard of for a horror film at this stage.

The audience breakdown is also striking. About 75% of viewers were under 35, with the 25-34 bracket being the largest single group. The film skewed slightly male, but 41% of the audience was female, and 32% was Hispanic. On Saturday to Sunday, it dropped just 11% — a stat that exhibitors notice, because it signals a film that people are recommending to each other in real time.

The YouTuber Who Shocked Hollywood

Barker came up as a content creator on YouTube, and ahead of the film’s release, he was clear about what kind of filmmaker he wanted to be. “I don’t want to put myself in a box,” he said. “The movies I want to make are the ones I would be excited to go see at the theater.” Clearly, a lot of people felt the same way.

He’s part of a growing wave. Markiplier’s Iron Lung brought in $50 million on a $3–4 million budget. Danny and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me earned $92 million on $4.5 million. And now A24 is betting on Kane Parsons’ Backrooms — born from a viral YouTube series — to be one of its biggest releases ever. But none of those had a budget as low as Obsession’s, and none generated this kind of awards conversation.

Focus Features ran a marketing campaign that matched the film’s energy. Cryptic billboards. A campaign where fans could sign up to receive texts from Nikki — 30,000 people did. A series of Discord quests targeting gamers that drew over a million participants in just over a week. AMC secured Dolby Cinema screens and offered an exclusive popcorn tin. Alamo Drafthouse named it an Alamo Recommend and hosted a live-streamed Q&A with Barker. It was old-school and new-school at once, and it worked.

“If we really want to make exhibition feel whole again, we need more movies like Obsession,” Focus Features distribution chief Lisa Bunnell said. “It’s nice to see a movie that surprises people and shows them there’s a lot of talent out there left to be seen. We’re taking seriously that people are discovering talent and content in new ways, and instead of dismissing it we’re saying, how are we able to take this to the big screen and really showcase the talent? I think that inspires young people. And if you can give them hope … that’s a beautiful thing.”

What Comes Next

The comparison points being thrown around right now are Hereditary — which opened to $13.5 million and finished with $90.3 million worldwide — and Barbarian, which opened to $10.5 million and closed at $46.1 million. Both were buzzy, word-of-mouth horror films from first-time directors. Obsession opened bigger than either of them.

The immediate challenge is The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars film in seven years, which is projected to open somewhere between $80–100 million next weekend. That’s a wall. But Obsession’s Saturday-to-Sunday hold and its Monday surge suggest this isn’t a film that collapses — it builds. Paranormal Activity opened to just $77,000, lost steam, then came back to win the box office in its fifth weekend. The situations aren’t identical, but the DNA is familiar.

Barker already has two more horror films in development, a comedy, and an original take on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He’s also been talking about Obsession sequels and an anthology series exploring different wishes and their consequences. For now, all eyes are on this weekend — and whether a little horror movie about a wish gone wrong can hold its own against Baby Yoda.