{"id":78354,"date":"2025-10-14T18:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/78354\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T18:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:49:07","slug":"focus-features-buys-curry-barkers-horror-movie-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/78354\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus Features Buys Curry Barker&#8217;s Horror Movie &#8216;Obsession&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tFocus Features has acquired \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/obsession\/\" id=\"auto-tag_obsession\" data-tag=\"obsession\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Obsession<\/a>,\u201d a low-budget horror film from YouTube breakout and first-time director <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/t\/curry-barker\/\" id=\"auto-tag_curry-barker\" data-tag=\"curry-barker\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Curry Barker<\/a>. The deal reportedly closed for $14 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBarker wrote and directed \u201cObsession\u201d in his feature debut. The movie, which premiered in the midnights section of the Toronto International Film Festival, follows a hopeless romantic who makes a Faustian bargain to win his crush\u2019s heart. A twisted take on the adage \u201cbe careful what you wish for,\u201d <a data-id=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/film\/features\/obsession-curry-barker-milk-serial-1236509467\/\" data-type=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/film\/features\/obsession-curry-barker-milk-serial-1236509467\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Barker previously told Variety <\/a>that inspiration struck after watching\u00a0an episode\u00a0of\u00a0\u201cThe Simpsons\u201d\u00a0where \u201cBart gets a\u00a0monkey paw\u00a0and causes a bunch of chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tFocus Features will release \u201cObsession\u201d in theaters in 2026. Universal Pictures International is set to handle overseas distribution in all territories except France, New Zealand and Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\t\u201cObsession\u201d stars Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless and Andy Richter. Producers include James Harris of Teashop Productions, Haley Nicole Johnson of Under the Shell, and Christian Mercuri of Capstone Pictures.\u00a0Capstone represented worldwide rights and fully financed the project. CAA Media Finance co-repped domestic rights with Capstone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBarker landed on Hollywood\u2019s radar with 2024\u2019s micro-budget short \u201cMilk &amp; Serial,\u201d which became a viral hit after <a data-id=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2024\/film\/news\/milk-serial-curry-barker-slasher-youtube-1236116310\/\" data-type=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2024\/film\/news\/milk-serial-curry-barker-slasher-youtube-1236116310\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he released the film for free on YouTube<\/a>. He\u2019s already lined up his next project, \u201cAnything but Ghosts,\u201d in which he\u2019s set to direct and star, as well as co-write the script with Tomlinson. Two prolific horror producers, Blumhouse founder Jason Blum and Roy Lee, boarded the film days before \u201cObsession\u201d debuted at TIFF.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto  lrv-a-font-body-m   \">\n\tBefore the specialty studio unveils \u201cObsession\u201d next year, Focus Features has a 2025 slate that includes Chloe Zhao\u2019s \u201cHamnet,\u201d Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone\u2019s latest collaboration \u201cBugonia\u201d and the Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson-led musical \u201cSong Sung Blue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Focus Features has acquired \u201cObsession,\u201d a low-budget horror film from YouTube breakout and first-time director Curry Barker. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5917,156,409,111,139,69,6300],"class_list":{"0":"post-78354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-curry-barker","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-obsession"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}