Obsession

What the greats are saying

• Steven Spielberg (Deadline, June 2026): "I have seen Obsession, and I loved it. I just applaud them."

• Zach Cregger, director of Barbarian (World of Reel): "So impressed with Obsession. Really, really special."

• Jason Blum, Blumhouse founder (Hollywood Reporter): "One of the most exciting horror filmmakers working today."

• Christopher Nolan and Ben Affleck both reached out to the team personally to say they loved the film, per co-star Cooper Tomlinson's Reel Appreciation interview.

Curry Barker · the path

1. Grew up in Mobile, Alabama. Born September 22, 1999. Saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at 11 and wanted to make horror ever since.

2. Left Alabama at 18 to study acting at the New York Film Academy in LA. Met Cooper Tomlinson in his first week of class. Neither finished the program.

3. They started a YouTube and TikTok sketch channel called That's A Bad Idea (notabadidea). 700M+ views. Simple comedy premises pushed until they got dark.

4. 2024: Curry made Milk & Serial for $800 — a Sony camcorder, one paid actor, four months of weekends. A real distributor said no. He uploaded it to YouTube for free. 1.6M views in days.

5. Producer James Harris of Tea Shop Productions cold-emailed to adapt Milk & Serial into a feature. Curry pitched Obsession instead — an idea he'd been carrying since watching a Simpsons episode with a monkey's-paw bit.

6. Wrote the Obsession script while pulling shifts at an LA coffee shop. UTA signed him. Tea Shop greenlit at a $1M ceiling. He brought it in for $750K. Shot the whole movie in 20 days.

7. September 2025: premiered at TIFF in the Midnight Madness section. The audience screamed. Named runner-up for the People's Choice award in that section.

8. Three studios fought for it: Focus Features, Neon, A24. Focus won and paid over $15M for global rights. Blumhouse joined as producer in December 2025.

9. May 15, 2026: opened in 2,615 US theaters. $17.2M opening weekend. 96% critic / 94% audience on Rotten Tomatoes. 8.2 on IMDb. A− CinemaScore.

10. Today, June 30: $370M worldwide on a $750K budget — a 493× return. Get Out held the previous indie horror record at 57×. About 41 million people have now watched it. Obsession is Focus Features' highest-grossing film ever by a wide margin, past Downton Abbey ($194.6M) — and it cleared 28 Years Later's entire $151M lifetime inside three weeks. Its 4th weekend ($25.6M domestic) was already the biggest 4th weekend ever for a horror film, beating The Blair Witch Project's 1999 record. Digital arrived June 16; PVOD lands June 30, with Peacock next.

What's next

• A24's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Curry is writing and directing a reimagining of the 1974 original. He calls his version "grounded, brutal, raw" and plans to fold in characters from the 1986 sequel. Produced by Spooky Pictures (Roy Lee, Steven Schneider) with Exurbia Films. Still in early development.

• Anything But Ghosts. Already wrapped April 2026 — and the cast is wild. Curry directed, co-wrote with Tomlinson, and stars. Aaron Paul, Bryce Dallas Howard, Violet McGraw lead. Chris Reinacher (400M+ views online, shorts at Sundance and Cannes) joined in June. Two fake paranormal investigators face real ghosts. Same fictional universe as Obsession. Focus distributes.

• More That's A Bad Idea. The sketch channel keeps running.

Nine months ago he was a YouTube comedian. Today he's Hollywood's most in-demand 20-something director, with Spielberg, Nolan, and Affleck on his list of fans.