{"id":39216,"date":"2026-05-25T23:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/?p=39216"},"modified":"2026-05-25T23:19:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T23:19:10","slug":"how-an-indie-horror-film-became-a-box-office-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/?p=39216","title":{"rendered":"How an indie horror film became a box-office \u2018Obsession\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-2a378a\" class=\"body-graf\">Curry Barker, a 26-year-old YouTuber-turned-filmmaker, made his horror film \u201cObsession\u201d in just 20 days on a mere $750,000 budget.<\/p>\n<p><button class=\"styles_subscriptionCTA__LOUeY\" id=\"subscriptionCTA\" type=\"button\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"styles_textWrapper__vxvko\">\n<p class=\"styles_text__daaVB styles_textLarge__qlzwu\">Subscribe to read this story ad-free    <\/p>\n<p class=\"styles_text__daaVB\">Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/rockcms\/2026-01\/arrow-f55fa5.svg\" alt=\"arrow\" class=\"styles_arrow__tnruW\" aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><\/button><\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-47d2d4\" class=\"body-graf\">Now, after its second weekend in theaters, the Focus Features-distributed movie is on track to earn more than 100 times that amount, with an expected $79.7 million haul at the global box office, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boxofficemojo.com\/release\/rl1660846081\/?ref_=bo_hm_rd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">according to Box Office Mojo<\/a>, which tracks global theatrical totals. Of that projected total, $58.5 million came from North American theaters. (Focus Features is a unit of NBC News\u2019 parent corporation, Comcast.) <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-562307\" class=\"body-graf\">It\u2019s a feat that even horror film genre heavyweight Jason Blum, who was an executive producer on the film, said is rare. \u201cObsession is the ONLY wide-release horror film on record to grow in its second weekend at this scale \u2014 $22.4M, up 30% over opening,\u201d Blum <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jason_blum\/status\/2058563587019563325\" target=\"_blank\">wrote Sunday on X<\/a>. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t happen in horror.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-b1dd24\" class=\"body-graf\">The movie is the latest project from a YouTuber to surpass industry expectations. \u201cIron Lung\u201d \u2014 a self-financed indie video game adaptation from Mark Fischbach, better known online as Markiplier \u2014 became a major box office success following its February rollout, helping renew interest in indie projects from online creators. \u201cBackrooms,\u201d an A24 movie from 20-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/2179026\/backrooms-box-office-preview\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">also looking at a big opening weekend<\/a>. <\/p>\n<section id=\"anchor-f8665e\" class=\"embed-widget embedWidget embed-widget--medium\" data-testid=\"embed-widget\"\/>\n<p id=\"anchor-cdbad9\" class=\"body-graf\">For Barker, the robust theatrical turnout for \u201cObsession\u201d marks another chapter in his wild, fairytale-esque Hollywood story. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-52c091\" class=\"body-graf\">Before the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September, Barker was primarily known on YouTube, where he built an audience with projects like \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt22075376\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Milk and Serial<\/a>,\u201d a thriller that follows a duo of YouTube pranksters. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-f814cb\" class=\"body-graf\">After \u201cObsession\u201d made its festival debut, studios were so blown away by him that they entered a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/tiff-gets-groove-back-with-hamnet-win-15m-obession-deal-1236372387\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bidding war<\/a> for the project, with Focus ultimately acquiring it for $15 million. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-2482c2\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cWhen we made \u2018Obsession,\u2019 we had no idea what was going to happen,\u201d Barker said in a video interview last week. \u201cAs the leader of the ship, I had to tell the people: \u2018This is going to be huge. You guys have to give this a year, because it\u2019s going to be something special.\u2019 But that\u2019s just because that\u2019s my job, to champion the movie. Really, I had no idea. &#8230; It was insane when we even just got into TIFF.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-3a49a0\" class=\"body-graf\">The movie, which stars Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette, is a romance-horror that plays on the idea that people should be careful about what \u2014 or who, in this case \u2014 they wish for. On the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/obsession_2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>, the film has amassed a 95% fresh \u201cTomatometer\u201d score from critics and a 94% hot \u201cPopcornmeter\u201d score from audiences. <\/p>\n<section id=\"anchor-ba2778\" class=\"embed-widget embedWidget embed-widget--medium\" data-testid=\"embed-widget\"\/>\n<p id=\"anchor-2d3f2c\" class=\"body-graf\">Asked why he thinks YouTubers are getting more recognition in Hollywood, Barker said he believes filmmakers and producers are \u201cwisening up\u201d about sharing and discovering content on the Google-owned video platform. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-fdde14\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cWe\u2019re finally getting to the point where people are like, OK, fine, I\u2019ll put my film on YouTube,\u201d he said. \u201cVersus when I was in film school, that was kind of like a last resort. People didn\u2019t want to put their stuff on YouTube. They wanted to go the festival route. I was like, screw it. You know, just put it on YouTube and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-3f09d9\" class=\"body-graf\">It\u2019s a bet that clearly paid off, with Hollywood already putting a lot of trust in Barker for his future endeavors. He has another film, titled \u201cAnything But Ghosts,\u201d in the works, and A24 recently tapped him to <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/04\/texas-chainsaw-massacre-curry-barker-1236867615\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">helm a reimagining of \u201cThe Texas Chain Saw Massacre.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-ced4ae\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">\u201cThe opportunities that I have right now are pretty insane,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m just trying to keep my head down and focus on what\u2019s important to me, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/pop-culture\/pop-culture-news\/obsession-curry-barker-box-office-hit-focus-features-rcna346824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Curry Barker, a 26-year-old YouTuber-turned-filmmaker, made his horror film \u201cObsession\u201d in just 20 days on a mere $750,000 budget. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. Now, after its second weekend in theaters, the Focus Features-distributed movie is on track to earn more than 100 times that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-conditions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39218,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39216\/revisions\/39218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pickbydoc.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}