How an indie horror film became a box-office ‘Obsession’

Curry Barker, a 26-year-old YouTuber-turned-filmmaker, made his horror film “Obsession” in just 20 days on a mere $750,000 budget.

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, according to Box Office Mojo, 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’ parent corporation, Comcast.)

It’s a feat that even horror film genre heavyweight Jason Blum, who was an executive producer on the film, said is rare. “Obsession is the ONLY wide-release horror film on record to grow in its second weekend at this scale — $22.4M, up 30% over opening,” Blum wrote Sunday on X. “This doesn’t happen in horror.”

The movie is the latest project from a YouTuber to surpass industry expectations. “Iron Lung” — a self-financed indie video game adaptation from Mark Fischbach, better known online as Markiplier — became a major box office success following its February rollout, helping renew interest in indie projects from online creators. “Backrooms,” an A24 movie from 20-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons, is also looking at a big opening weekend.

For Barker, the robust theatrical turnout for “Obsession” marks another chapter in his wild, fairytale-esque Hollywood story.

Before the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September, Barker was primarily known on YouTube, where he built an audience with projects like “Milk and Serial,” a thriller that follows a duo of YouTube pranksters.

After “Obsession” made its festival debut, studios were so blown away by him that they entered a bidding war for the project, with Focus ultimately acquiring it for $15 million.

“When we made ‘Obsession,’ we had no idea what was going to happen,” Barker said in a video interview last week. “As the leader of the ship, I had to tell the people: ‘This is going to be huge. You guys have to give this a year, because it’s going to be something special.’ But that’s just because that’s my job, to champion the movie. Really, I had no idea. … It was insane when we even just got into TIFF.”

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 — or who, in this case — they wish for. On the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has amassed a 95% fresh “Tomatometer” score from critics and a 94% hot “Popcornmeter” score from audiences.

Asked why he thinks YouTubers are getting more recognition in Hollywood, Barker said he believes filmmakers and producers are “wisening up” about sharing and discovering content on the Google-owned video platform.

“We’re finally getting to the point where people are like, OK, fine, I’ll put my film on YouTube,” he said. “Versus when I was in film school, that was kind of like a last resort. People didn’t 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.”

It’s 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 “Anything But Ghosts,” in the works, and A24 recently tapped him to helm a reimagining of “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”

“The opportunities that I have right now are pretty insane,” he said. “But I’m just trying to keep my head down and focus on what’s important to me, you know?”

Source link