Last Updated on May 27, 2026 by Amber T
Memorial Day weekend tends to be a lucrative one at the box office. This year was no exception, as The Mandalorian and Grogu, the latest adventure in the Star Wars galaxy, opened with $82 million domestically. That number is estimated to grow to $102 million by the end of the Monday holiday. However, the biggest story of the weekend wasn’t Baby Yoda on the big screen; it was Curry Barker’s Obsession.
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Audiences have been downright obsessed with Barker’s breakout horror feature, which hails from Blumhouse and Focus Features. On its second weekend, it pulled in $22.4 million. Counting Monday that total will grow to $28.2 million. That represents an insane 30% increase over Obsession’s impressive opening. It simply cannot be emphasized just how much this sort of thing doesn’t happen for a wide release, studio movie. Particularly in the post-pandemic era.
To date, it has earned $58.5 million domestically to go with $21.2 million overseas for a running total of $79.7 million. Barker made the movie on a budget said to be in the $750,000 to $1 million range. Another way to put it? Through two weekends, it has earned roughly 100 times its budget in ticket sales. Granted, Focus Features paid $14 million to acquire it, but they’ve made that back and then some already. A24 now looks brilliant for hiring Barker to direct the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie.
Obsession centers on a hopeless romantic who breaks a mysterious “One Wish Willow” to win his crush’s heart. The wish is granted but he soon discovers that his desires will come with a sinister price. Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter star.
So, how the heck did this little-movie-that-could become the surprise breakout hit of 2026? Well, for one, critics and audiences both absolutely adore it. The movie holds a tremendous 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, both with critics and audiences. You can read Fango’s review right here. To say that a horror movie getting such high marks is rare again would be an understatement.
To that end, Paramount released Passenger in theaters over the weekend. It did fine, pulling in $10.5 million across the four-day weekend on a reported $15 million budget. But that movie’s performance was completely overshadowed thanks to the downright rapturous reception to Barker’s latest.
Word of mouth for Obsession has been through the roof. That’s the main thing. Focus didn’t spend a fortune to advertise the movie. This has all come through organic, “you need to see this” buzz that simply can’t be bought. It also, almost by accident, worked as stellar counter-programming against Disney’s latest Star Wars adventure.
Beyond that, the story of Barker going from making no-budget movies on YouTube to becoming a Hollywood superstar seemingly overnight earned a ton of press coverage, which got a lot of eyes on it. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Inde Navarrette’s performance as Nikki has earned a lot of praise and got people talking. Everything clicked. Everything worked in this movie’s favor and not a damn thing worked against it. It’s nothing shy of a minor miracle.
We’ll see how well it holds as Kane Parsons’ own buzzy debut feature Backrooms arrives this upcoming weekend. Will that take up all the oxygen in the room when it comes to theatrical horror? Or can it co-exist with Obsession (most likely to the detriment of Passenger)? Time will tell.
Obsession is in theaters now.
