Obsession, a horror film made for $750,000 by a 26-year-old first-time director, has crossed $200 million worldwide to become Focus Features’ biggest film of all time.
The milestone arrived in its fourth weekend of release, a run that nobody in the industry saw coming when Focus Features acquired the film out of the Toronto International Film Festival for $15 million in September 2025.
Director Curry Barker built his following on YouTube sketch comedy before shooting Obsession independently with a cast of unknowns. The film premiered in TIFF’s Midnight Madness section to strong reviews, then opened wide in US theaters on May 15, 2026. It starred Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter. The plot follows a hopeless romantic who makes a Faustian bargain to win his crush’s heart, described by Barker as inspired by a Simpsons episode featuring a monkey paw.
What followed was one of the most unusual box office runs in recent Hollywood history. Obsession became the first film since E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982 to increase its weekend earnings in both weeks two and three. Its fourth weekend brought in $25.6 million, a drop of just 7%, setting the all-time record for best fourth-weekend hold in horror history. The previous record belonged to The Blair Witch Project, which fell 9% and earned $24.3 million in its fourth weekend in 1999.
Domestic earnings now stand at $152.1 million, with $72.6 million overseas, pushing the worldwide total to $224.7 million. The film surpasses Focus Features’ previous record holder, 2019’s Downton Abbey at $194.6 million. Industry projections now track Obsession toward the $300 million mark, which would make it the first sub-$1 million budget film to reach that threshold since Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon in 1973. Focus Features has already delayed the film’s digital streaming release and confirmed Barker’s next project, Anything But Ghosts, for future release.
