Obsession truly is the little indie movie that could. Starring relative unknowns (at the time), Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston, the Curry Barker-directed horror movie has become one of the biggest horror films of all time, bringing in over $500M worldwide. Not only that, but the movie, made on a sub-$1 million budget, has also become the most successful original film of the decade, easily taking that honor from the animated Elemental. But Obsession almost had a very different introduction to the world—one that likely would have stopped it from attaining either honor.
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One offer to get the film in front of audiences would have kept Obsession from ever having its record-breaking theatrical run, instead relegating it to a streaming-only release. The offer in question? One made by Netflix. “They put in an offer to just put it straight on Netflix,” said Barker as he broke down the experience of bringing the movie to life with Q with Tom Power. The director also went on to say that he woke up after Obsession‘s Toronto Film Festival showing to a ton of missed calls, all made in hopes of putting in the winning bid. Ultimately, Focus Films won the bidding war—a fact fans everywhere are grateful for, as it led to the in-theater experience that helped make the movie an immediate cult classic.
A Straight-to-Streaming Release Could Have Been the End for Obsession Before Its Epic Run Even Began
“I woke up the next day and I had missed called from my manager. I didn’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing,” Barker said. “I had missed calls from my agent. I had missed calls from Christian, who financed the movie. And I called my manager, Aaron, and I was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ and he was like, ‘Everyone is putting in a bid for this thing.’” And just who is everyone? The studios putting their hat in the ring for the distribution rights included Neon, Focus, A24, and more, which blew the lid off Baker’s expectations for a simple acquisition or small theatrical run, and blew Netflix’s straight-to-streaming offer out of the water.
What Obsession has pulled off is nothing short of a film miracle—the sort of thing that writers and directors wish for their entire lives. One viewer said, “As an indie-filmmaker myself, I am so happy about the success of the film. It makes me hopeful about the future of cinema. Time for Hollywood and distributors to realise what films people actually want to see.” And it proves that original ideas are what audiences are hungry for. While we’ll never live in a world without the huge Marvel-esque spectacle movies, Obsession came out of nowhere to show studios that horror, especially horror that has something to say, isn’t something to take lightly, and that the genre still has what it takes to put its money where its mouth is.
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IMAGE COURTESY OF WARNER BROS.
