After Weapons made Oscar history in recent months by becoming one of the few horror films to triumph in the acting categories, the momentum of this popular film genre continues at the box office thanks to a film that is rewriting the rules of box office success. Final figures are in following last weekend, and according to official statistics, Curry Barker’s “Obsession” made box office history with a second weekend of release that was unprecedented—or nearly so.
After “Obsession” surpassed Michael on its first Monday, following a $17 million opening weekend in the U.S., the film by the promising young director climbed to $24 million in its second weekend, marking a 39% increase. A result that completely defies all standard models: this is because an increase of nearly 40% places “Obsession” in a rare statistical category.
IndieWire reached out to analysts at Comscore, who looked for other similar comparisons, and only a handful of films have come close to this result under similar conditions (wide release, thousands of theaters, comparable scale). The most frequently cited modern comparison is with “Sound of Freedom,” which also saw an increase of about 39% in its second weekend, albeit under very different circumstances, including a theater expansion and an unusual “pay-for-the-future” ticket sales dynamic.
There has therefore been no case similar to that of “Obsession” in recent box office history, and now all eyes will be on its third weekend and how these results hold up, especially with such strong word-of-mouth and Generation Z driving ticket sales, largely through a social media push. Incidentally, Obsession could become one of the few films to gross $100 million on a budget of just $700,000—an extremely rare feat in cinema history that confirms its status as a “box office phenomenon.”
Incidentally, horror fans will be happy to know that, with Obsession’s success already in the bag, Curry Baker was recently chosen to direct The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the highly anticipated reboot of the A24 franchise.
