{"id":607344,"date":"2026-05-27T21:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607344\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T21:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:55:11","slug":"horror-film-obsession-is-breaking-box-office-records-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/607344\/","title":{"rendered":"Horror film ‘Obsession’ is breaking box office records. Here’s how"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s the summer horror film that has moviegoers hooked.<\/p>\n

In “Obsession,” directed by Curry Barker<\/a>, an awkward young guy wishes that his coworker would fall in love with him, and things quickly take a dark turn.<\/p>\n

And now, with a 96% score <\/a>on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences are along for the ride.<\/p>\n

“Obsession” is breaking records. Here’s what we know about the R-rated film’s early success.<\/p>\n

Stephen King’s career in photos: Look back at the \u2018King of Horror\u2019 and his books<\/p>\n

1 of 30<\/p>\n

Bestselling author Stephen King, shown in a 1970 file photo.<\/p>\n

(REUTERS)<\/p>\n

‘Obsession’: Inde Navarrette lives to scare people after her breakout role<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Obsession’ saw an uptick in ticket sales during its second week\"Curry<\/p>\n

Curry Barker, Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston attend the Los Angeles Special Screening of Focus Features’ “Obsession” at the Hollywood Legion Theater on May 11, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.<\/p>\n

“Obsession” saw a significant rise in interest, resulting in its box office performance exceeding its debut, a unique victory in the genre, according to executive producer and Blumhouse Productions CEO Jason Blum.<\/p>\n

“‘Obsession’ is the ONLY wide-release horror film on record to grow in its second weekend at this scale \u2014 $22.4M, up 30% over opening,” the Blumhouse founder said in an X post on May 24<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to estimates from Comscore, the movie grossed even more in North America, landing at an 39% increase with 23.9 million.<\/p>\n

As Bloody Disgusting<\/a> and Variety<\/a> reported, “Obsession” garnered $17.2 million from 2,615 cinemas during its opening weekend.<\/p>\n

When did ‘Obession’ premiere?<\/p>\n

The movie, which came out in theaters on May 15, premiered last fall at\u00a0the Toronto Film Festival,<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Focus Features bought it<\/a>\u00a0out of the fest. Blum\u00a0joined<\/a>\u00a0months later.<\/p>\n

“This doesn’t happen in horror,” Blum continued on X about the box office performance. “Grateful to Focus Features, Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, & Divide\/Conquer for championing this movie from the start.”<\/p>\n

\"Curry<\/p>\n

Curry Barker attends the Los Angeles Special Screening of Focus Features’ “Obsession” at the Hollywood Legion Theater on May 11, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.<\/p>\n

Barker, who got his start on YouTube, executed “Obsession” with $750K in under a month<\/a>, according to NBC News.<\/p>\n

Barker previously spoke to USA TODAY about the approach to his films.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cMy sensibilities are putting ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and pushing them past the boundaries of their comfort level,\u201d he said. \u201cI gravitate toward stories that ask the audience, what would you do in this situation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch ‘Obsession’ trailer<\/p>\n

Contributing: Brian Truitt, USA TODAY<\/p>\n

Taylor Ardrey is a news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at tardrey@usatodayco.com.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Obsession’ is now a record-breaking horror film. What we know<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s the summer horror film that has moviegoers hooked. In “Obsession,” directed by Curry Barker, an awkward young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[95568,56153,96,117865,56154,2839,14159,206868,18685,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-607344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-blumhouse-productions","tag-curry-barker","tag-entertainment","tag-horror-film","tag-jason-blum","tag-movies","tag-obsession","tag-office-performance","tag-rotten-tomatoes","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}