Obsession has become an obsession for movie-goers. The low-budget horror film that was reportedly made for $700,000 has earned over $500 million at the global box office and has become one of the 2026 movie calendar’s most notable success stories. It’s also turned a spotlight on Obsession cast member Inde Navarrette, who will be playing Rogue in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men film.
But before all the attention, before we met Nikki and Bear, and before we knew what a One Wish Willow was, Sony was outbid for Curry Barker’s dark romance in which a young man makes a wish to win his crush’s heart, only to learn that some desire comes at a sinister price. According to Variety, while speaking at the Lumière Summit, an international film and entertainment conference hosted by the French government in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and CEO Tom Rothman said:
I was outraged. I would like to have that moment back. I congratulate the worthy opposition.
While Rothman was said to be “joshing,” or teasing, when it came to his outrage for missing out on the property, the fact that he even mentioned wanting that moment back and that he congratulated Universal’s Focus Features on the win is very notable. It’s hard to know just how far Sony might have gone or if they would have used a One Wish Willow to change the outcome, but they definitely seriously wish they would have landed the movie. Apparently, Sony lost out by “a couple million dollars,” which they likely could have easily made up with the huge box office profit.
We hear a lot about how young people aren’t going to movies, but a project like Obsession shows that that’s not actually true. Yes, it may be harder to capture the attention of a certain age of movie-going audiences, but it’s clearly not impossible. When you offer something with cultural significance like Obsession, it has the potential to become a juggernaut. It was already a success story with the bidding war that followed its premiere at TIFF, having been acquired for $15 million. But then, it went on to be that rare mix of huge box office success as well as being one of the best horror movies of recent memory.
Nikki from Obsession has become such a standout character that even though it was too late to add a full-blown house to the Halloween Horror Nights line-up this spooky season, Universal Studios Hollywood added a roaming Freaky Nikki to the festivities. She’s already become a fast fan favorite, as crowds of guests have been seeking her out to interact with her throughout each night of the event.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Curry Barker and his That’s a Bad Idea YouTube channel partner Cooper Tomlinson, who plays Ian in Obsession, will take advantage of the film’s success moving forward. The pair have already shot Anything But Ghosts, a supernatural horror-comedy for Focus that exists in the same universe as Obsession and co-stars Aaron Paul.
I’m curious to see how studios will react to the mark Obsession has made on the industry as they seek out new projects and platform new filmmakers, and whether they might be rethinking how much they bid on films in the future, to find that next big thing.
