Curry Barker Pushes Obsession to $28.5 Million, Obsession Director Gains
obsession director Curry Barker has turned Obsession into the box office’s number two movie, with the horror title headed for a $28.5 million weekend after a $8 million Friday. The film is also expected to rise 19 percent in its third weekend, a pattern so rare that it is being described as the first since 1982 to grow on both its second and third weekends.
Curry Barker and the 19 percent rise
The $28.5 million estimate puts Obsession ahead of the usual second-weekend drop that wide releases often take, where falls of 50 to 70 percent are normal. Barker’s film did the opposite, making more money in its second weekend than in its first and now adding another projected gain in weekend three.
That kind of hold is the practical story for theaters and distributors right now: a horror movie with clear word of mouth is staying in the marketplace instead of burning hot and fading fast. The comparison point inside the current box office is even sharper because Obsession finished behind Backrooms, which took the top spot this weekend.
Backrooms, Iron Lung and the YouTube path
Backrooms opened with $38 million on Friday and was expected to bring in $80 million to $90 million domestically over the weekend, while Mark Fischbach’s Iron Lung grossed nearly $41 million domestically. Those numbers place Barker inside a small group of YouTube-bred filmmakers now getting theatrical scale, not just online reach.
Barker released the hourlong found footage horror film Milk & Serial on YouTube in 2024 before directing Obsession. He has already shot his next film and is set to direct a new remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which means this run is not a one-off spike but part of a larger studio-facing trajectory.
What Obsession changes now
Mark DelVecchio described what separates this crop of filmmakers with the word “longevity,” saying, “lots of YouTubers have tried to make the leap to mainstream movies and come up short.” He added, “At this point, some of them have been making videos for a very long time, and that’s how you develop a loyal audience that will follow you.”
For Barker, the immediate takeaway is simple: a horror movie about “a romantic wish gone nightmarishly wrong” has become a reliable theatrical performer, not just a curiosity from an online creator. If the 19 percent third-weekend gain lands, it will reinforce that theaters can still turn durable genre demand into a longer run than the usual front-loaded weekend model.
