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‘Obsession’ Pulls Off Box Office Feat Not Seen Since Steven Spielberg’s ’80s Sci-Fi Favorite

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Earlier in this century, horror was having a tough time at the box office. From hopeful indies to big franchise sequels, nothing seemed to stick. Then came the arthouse renaissance led by A24, and the genre was back to its best, with it becoming difficult to remember a better time for horror fans than the past couple of years. This is best exemplified by last weekend’s domestic box office ranking, with the second weekend for The Mandalorian and Grogu facing a 70% drop thanks to the huge debut success of a record-breaking viral arrival.

A24’s Backrooms, led by Renate Reinsve and Chiwetel Ejiofor, topped the box office with an enormous $118 million global haul, of which $81 million was in domestic revenue. The highest-grossing opening for any A24 movie, Backrooms marks the major breakout of 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who has now broken the record for the youngest director to hold the #1 spot at the North American box office. However, the success of Backrooms is perhaps not even the most impressive horror feat achieved at the box office last weekend, with that award going the way of Focus Features’ Obsession.

Directed by Curry Barker, another young director to make the move from YouTube to the big screen, Obsession‘s universal critical acclaim is somehow bettered by its commercial success, having now returned over $166 million against a $1 million budget. However, what many don’t know is that Obsession has officially achieved a feat not seen since way back in 1982. Not since director Steven Spielberg‘s family sci-fi classic E.T. has a film grown in ticket sales in three consecutive weeks outside the holiday corridor. Can Obsession do it again this weekend?

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Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz
Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving?
Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky

Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.

🏕️Jason

🔪Michael

💤Freddy

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🎈Pennywise

🪆Chucky

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01

Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do?
First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.





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02

Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong?
Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.





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03

What is your most reliable survival asset?
Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?





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04

What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through?
Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.





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05

You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role?
Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.





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06

What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make?
Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.





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07

What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means?
Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.





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08

It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it?
The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?





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Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated
Your Best Chance Is Against…

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.

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Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th

Jason Voorhees

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

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  • He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
  • Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
  • The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
  • You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.


Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween

Michael Myers

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

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  • But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
  • Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
  • Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
  • You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.


Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street

Freddy Krueger

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

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  • You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
  • The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
  • Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
  • Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.


Derry, Maine · It

Pennywise

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

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  • The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
  • You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
  • That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
  • It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.


Chicago · Child’s Play

Chucky

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

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  • You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
  • Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
  • Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
  • Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.

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Could This Weekend’s Big New Arrival Pose a Threat to ‘Obsession’?

Although a new entry in the Scary Movie franchise debuts this weekend, it seems unlikely for a satire of modern horror to distract from the generational genius of Barker’s Obsession. But what about a different genre entirely? Obsession faces perhaps its biggest new competition from Travis Knight‘s big-screen reboot of Masters of the Universe, with millions likely to flock to the theater to see Nicholas Galitzine‘s He-Man in action. However, realistically, Obsession‘s biggest competition will come from the aforementioned Backrooms, which is predicted to hold strong into weekend #2.

Obsession is available to watch in theaters now. Stay tuned to Collider for the latest box office updates.


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Release Date

May 15, 2026

Runtime

108 minutes

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Director

Curry Barker

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