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Obsession Is All The Talk At The Box Office
Courtesy of Focus Features
Curry Barker’s Obsession has become a theatrical miracle, earning more in its second weekend of wide release than it did in its first.
Why It Hits: Barker’s movie is disrupting almost every notion of what it takes to become a hit these days — it’s from a first-time filmmaker, was made for under $1 million, has no stars, and isn’t playing on any PLF screens. It’s what Lisa Bunnell, head of distribution at Focus Features — which acquired the film for $14 million and is now distributing it — calls succeeding “the old-fashioned, classic theatrical way.” That should be very welcome news in Hollywood.
Between The Tickets: The horror genre is notorious for having a steep drop-off in ticket sales during its second weekend. Obsession is proving that the old wisdom no longer applies.
After making $17.2 million domestically in its first weekend, Obsession came roaring back with an estimated $28.2 million over the Memorial Day holiday — a 30% increase in ticket sales.
The movie’s global total now stands at $74 million, already making it a contender for the year’s most profitable film.
To show just how strong demand is, the critically acclaimed crowd-pleaser held the No. 1 spot at the box office every weekday last week until The Mandalorian & Grogu debuted on Friday.
Young audiences showed up in droves. PostTrak data reveals that 75% of moviegoers were between 18 and 25, fueled by viral word of mouth.
Closing Thoughts: Curry Barker is the latest example of a YouTube-bred creator breaking into Hollywood, especially in the horror genre. Earlier this year, Markiplier (real name Mark Fischbach) self-distributed his self-funded film Iron Lung to more than $50 million at the box office, and expectations are high for Kane Parsons’ Backrooms, which A24 is releasing this week.
There’s little question now that YouTube has become Hollywood’s new minor leagues… but it may also be the only platform where creators can still make a living and build an audience between movies.
Coming Soon: A smart studio could consider building an official YouTube incubator that gives promising filmmakers the resources to test concepts online before committing to a feature film… hopefully making a few viral creators in the process.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.