Curry Barker’s disturbing, spellbinding monkey paw horror tale “Obsession” is now not only the highest grossing film ever in the history of Focus Features, it has also passed a unique box office record that was held for 22 years by none other than Michael Moore.
The provocative documentarian’s most acclaimed film, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” an investigation into the Iraq War and the media’s failure to question the Bush Administration over its claims that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” has stood for decades as the highest grossing film ever acquired at a film festival. After its Palme D’Or victory at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and its acquisition by Lionsgate, the film grossed $222 million, then the highest total ever for a documentary.
But now, “Obsession” has passed the pre-inflation adjustment total of “Fahrenheit 9/11” after nearly four weeks in theaters, standing with a running box office total of $224 million. Premiering in the midnight section of last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, “Obsession” became one of the buzziest titles at the event and was acquired for $15 million by Focus.
Domestically, “Obsession” has passed $150 million at the box office and is on its way to joining “The Exorcist,” “Sinners” and the “It” duology as only the fifth horror film to gross $200 million domestically before inflation. This in spite of a $17.1 million opening weekend and thanks to stunningly high weekday grosses and higher weekend totals in its second and third weekends, an extreme rarity in the modern box office.
This past weekend, “Obsession” finally took a weekend-to-weekend drop, but it was by only 7% as it made $25.6 million in its fourth weekend. This is in spite of competition from films like fellow indie horror hit “Backrooms” and a parody of horror movies, Paramount/Miramax’s “Scary Movie,” which opened to $55 million this past weekend.
At this point, there’s really little telling how far “Obsession” can go, as it still has a few more overseas markets awaiting release like Spain and Germany. The film needs roughly $125 million more worldwide to join the unadjusted top 10 highest grossing horror films of all time. Should it do that, it will pass hit films like “A Quiet Place” and ‘The Conjuring 2,” and passing $400 million worldwide would make it only the eighth horror film to do so and, with a budget of just $1 million, make it the cheapest film to cross that mark.
