While Obsession, the highly-scored horror movie, landed third place for its opening weekend at the box office, already a win earning many multiples of its budget, by Monday, it set another record. One we have not seen since 2009, when another horror movie did the same thing.
Obsession is the cheapest movie to top the box office in 17 years, word-of-mouth spreading so that it beat out the likes of blockbusters Michael, The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Mortal Kombat II, earning $2.9 million, bringing its worldwide total up to $27 million.
That’s on a reported budget of $750,000, a figure barely any wide-released films can boast, and the last movie with a lower budget to do that is the first Paranormal Activity in 2009. That film reportedly had a budget of $15,000 and was shot in a single house with minimal equipment. It’s sort of a Hollywood urban legend that it’s all it cost, with additional post-production and promotion costs after, but regardless, it’s still lower than Obsession. Paranormal Activity opened very low in limited release, earning just $77,000, but by its fifth weekend, it had built up so much viral steam that it made $21.1 million and won the box office.
We are only 4-5 days into Obsession’s run, and the fact that this happened on Monday is eyebrow-raising, and makes one wonder what the following weekend might look like, if it could possibly pass its opening weekend with enough recommendations and interest. One problem is that it’s about to run into The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first Star Wars movie in seven years, likely opening at $80-100 million. But even still, Obsession is destined to be one of the biggest horror hits of the year, if not the last few years, if not the last decade. And that may even carry on into award season as star Inde Navarrette’s performance as Nikki is being praised as one of the best in horror history. After seeing the movie, you will understand that is not an exaggeration.
Now, we are heading toward another potential low-budget horror success made by someone who was previously a YouTuber like Obsession’s Curry Barker. That would be Kane Parsons’ Backrooms from A24, made for under $10 million (which isn’t $750,000, but still). Stemming from a mind-bending series of YouTube videos, it’s projected to be a big hit for A24, if not one of its biggest. But no, it’s likely not going to pass up Obsession’s big record here, and there may be more and more milestones to hit for the feature as time goes on. All eyes on next weekend, and how it can stack up next to Baby Yoda.
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