It’s been a whirlwind several weeks for director Curry Barker as his breakout horror hit Obsession has continued to surprise at every turn. That continued on its third weekend in theaters. Despite very stiff competition from A24’s Backrooms and Disney’s latest Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian and Grogu, audiences continued to flock to Barker’s buzzy feature directorial debut.
See also: OBSESSION Star Had Just One Take To Film One Of The Movie’s Most Brutal Stunts
Hailing from Focus Features, Obsession added an estimated $26.4 million domestically in its third frame. That’s, rather amazingly, an increase of 10% compared to weekend two, which increased about 40% compared to opening weekend. This sort of thing simply doesn’t happen in the modern era. It's downright unthinkable, particuarly for a low-budget, original horror movie from a previously unknown director. Mind you, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms also opened to more than $81 million. An opening of that size normally would have squeezed out any other horror movie.
Instead, these movies finished in the number one and two spots on the charts, respectively, leaving The Mandalorian and Grogu ($25 million) to fall to third. That would have been very difficult to predict even a couple of weeks ago. To date, Obsession has made $148 million worldwide, including $13.8 million overseas, which is up 39% compared to the prior weekend.
Barker’s feature debut centers on a young man in love who breaks a mysterious “One Wish Willow” to win his crush’s heart. His wish is granted but he quickly realizes that his desires come with a sinister price. Michael Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter star. As does Inde Navarrette, who has become a true breakout thanks to her performance as Nikki.
Backrooms may have had the most surprising opening of the year, but Obsession is the biggest surprise of 2026 overall. Whereas the former was based on a series of viral YouTube shorts that were themselves based on a very popular creepypasta, the latter is a wholly original idea. It was also made for less than $1 million, before Focus acquired it for $14 million, an amount that seemed shocking at the time. It was, to put it lightly, money well spent.
Looking ahead, the genre fare keeps coming as the new Scary Movie debuts this upcoming weekend. After that, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day hits theaters on June 12. We won’t have another big studio horror movie after that until July 10 when Evil Dead Burn rolls into town.
Obsession is in theaters now.
