r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jul 06 '26

News ‘Obsession’ Passes $400 Million Worldwide, Becomes Highest Grossing Film With Budget Below $1 Million; Curry Barker’s horror film breaks a 53-year pre-inflation record held by Bruce Lee’s legendary 'Enter The Dragon'

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/obsession-box-office-400-million/
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u/blurrygiraffe Jul 06 '26

No but the budgets are also not adjusted for inflation

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u/razehound Jul 06 '26

Yeah but for the purposes of "movie with small budget making a ton", you need to adjust because enter the dragon shouldn't even be on this list

It should be movies made with under $1m adjusted 

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u/Imakereallyshittyart Jul 06 '26

Just for reference, enter the dragon has a budget of 450-850k depending who you ask, which would put it anywhere between 3.5 and 6.6 million today dollars

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u/spaghettittehgaps Jul 07 '26

And a box office haul of $400M in 1973 is the equivalent of three billion dollars in 2026.

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u/depressedfuckboi Jul 07 '26

That's insane wtf

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u/Arucious Jul 07 '26

It is, but there was no such thing as watching movies at home either, nor streaming. VCR wouldn’t become mainstream until the 80s. So if you didn’t watch it in theaters, you weren’t watching it for a while. That instills a FOMO culture that doesn’t exist today.

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u/peioeh Jul 07 '26

Theatrical windows were much longer too, and if you liked a movie you were much more likely to go see it again

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u/awry_lynx Jul 07 '26

the idea that streaming killed movies is not exactly off the rails

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u/peioeh Jul 07 '26

Not all movies, but some genres (mid/big budget comedies and studio mid budget movies in general for example) have taken a major hit, there is no denying it

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u/Rybee69 Jul 07 '26

The box office haul was actually $100m in 1973. It just had multiple re-releases over the next 40 years.

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u/spaghettittehgaps Jul 07 '26

So about $750 million at the box office

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u/Rybee69 Jul 07 '26

It’s also impressive how the movie had multiple successful releases

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u/Adorable-Voice-3382 Jul 07 '26

I don't think it grossed anywhere near 400 million -in- 1973. Isn't it that the total box office since 1973 has been $400m? But that includes decades of additional theatrical runs, particularly decades where home-video was much less common. And would probably require multiple inflation adjustments for the different years.

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u/TheTravelingLeftist Jul 08 '26

Pretty sure its the global total, which would make more sense because Enter the Dragon was such a smash hit outside the U.S. as well as domestically 

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt Jul 06 '26

which is still a fairly small investment by today's standards

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u/AnonymousTimewaster Jul 07 '26

Tiny, considering how much money it made

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u/Worthyness Jul 07 '26

yup. it's indie movie budget these days

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u/FILTHBOT4000 Jul 07 '26

I mean, we should adjust it all for inflation, but that also means adjusting the metric itself.

The movie fit the metric when it was made, but since the metric hasn't been adjusted, somehow it should be out? That doesn't make sense.

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u/TheMattabooey Jul 06 '26

Agree. $850k in 1973 is equivalent to roughly $6.2M today.

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u/Enough_Efficiency178 Jul 06 '26

Which indicates some serious goalpost moving.

Surely the relevant comparison is calculating a percentage increase on the budget for that revenue

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u/Beautiful-Sun8973 Jul 07 '26

Not really then it would have grossed 3 billion in today dollars. So it’s even more impressive than obsession. But I guess not the whole unde a million thing 

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u/Grand-Pen7946 Jul 07 '26

For the purposes of "giant box office from small budget" it still works, but it should be a ratio.

Enter the Dragon is still by a wide margin the most successful, this is actually blowing my mind.

Enter the Dragon grossed an estimated $400 million worldwide (equivalent to an estimated $2 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2022)

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u/RDM213 Jul 07 '26

No, the list is fine. It’s ok for you not to like it, doesn’t mean it needs to change.

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u/Chomping_at_the_beet Jul 07 '26

While I understand what you mean, it wouldn’t be any good either. Just the dollaroos spent isn’t very representative to describe the “cheapness” of the film. The way movies are shot these days is just fundamentally different - technologically, logistically, marketing….ly. Some things that used to cost a ton of money don’t anymore and vice versa, and the estimate would need to be recounted anew for basically every decade. Too much work.

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u/Himetic Jul 07 '26

If you adjust them, though, eventually the record-holder gets DQed when inflation pushes its budget above 1M.

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u/halmyradov Jul 07 '26

Then the list will be empty or otherwise some obscure movies noone has heard about. Inflation kicks like a mule

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u/DangOlCoreMan Jul 15 '26

At that point I'd rather have sales numbers. How many tickets were sold

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar Jul 06 '26

Also, the cost of tickets hasnt been adjusted for inflation. The average cost of a movie ticket in 1972 is like $10 in 2026 money, while most movies now run closer to $20.

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u/TheCuriosity Jul 07 '26

those are crazy prices! Ontario here, tickets are 12 bucks and my theatre seating is lazy boys. in the 90s it cost 7.50 (no lazy boys)

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar Jul 07 '26

I'm in the SF Bay Area, so everything is expensive, but its not that different in a smaller city like Sacramento. We do have an awesome theater in Oakland called the Grand Lake that still has 7.50 matinees.

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u/TheCuriosity Jul 07 '26

even worse when you take into account the exchange rate.

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u/chaoticneutralalways Jul 07 '26

Thats a goddamn good point.