Curry Barker’s horror film Obsession sparks multimillion-dollar bidding war
A $750,000 horror movie shot in 20 days turned Curry Barker into Hollywood’s latest bidding-war prize, with Focus Features paying about $14 million.
Curry Barker’s Obsession turned a 20-day, $750,000 shoot into one of the most expensive indie horror pickups of the season, with Focus Features winning worldwide rights after the film’s Midnight Madness premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 5, 2025.
The deal was widely reported at about $14 million, with some estimates pushing closer to $15 million. Universal Pictures International is handling most overseas territories, and Focus is aiming for a 2026 theatrical release, a sign that the studio sees Barker’s low-budget title as more than a niche festival discovery. Early box-office reporting said the film opened well ahead of expectations.
Obsession stars Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette, with supporting roles from Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter. Barker has said the film centers on consent and communication, while also leaning into the dangerous side of wish fulfillment. The story follows a young man whose supernatural wish for his crush to love him comes true, only to collapse into catastrophe.
The rise did not come out of nowhere. Barker first broke through with Milk & Serial, a found-footage horror feature he made for $800 and released free on YouTube after it became a breakout with horror fans. The film was posted on August 8, 2024, and has drawn about 2.686 million views, a scale that gave Barker proof that a creator outside the studio system could build an audience before a distributor ever entered the picture.
Barker is also known for that’s a bad idea, the sketch-comedy duo he shares with Cooper Tomlinson. The channel has about 1.14 million subscribers, giving Barker a direct line to viewers who already know his name, his tone, and his genre instincts. That built-in audience helped make Obsession a coveted title for buyers looking for films that arrive with demand already attached.
Jason Blum has publicly praised Barker as one of the most exciting horror filmmakers working today, and that kind of endorsement only sharpened the sense that Obsession reflects a larger shift in the marketplace. A filmmaker with a small budget, a viral footprint, and a recognizable online brand forced a major studio fight without waiting for the old gatekeepers to grant permission.
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