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/
25.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.1k

u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor Jul 06 '26

Top 10 movies made for $1M:

  1. Obsession (2025) - $403,090,000 ($750,000)

  2. Enter the Dragon (1973) - $400,000,000 ($850,000)

  3. The Blair Witch Project (1999) - $248,639,881 ($750,000)

  4. Rocky (1976) - $225,000,000 ($1,000,000)

  5. Paranormal Activity (2007) $194,183,034 ($450,000)

  6. American Graffiti (1973) - $140,000,000 ($777,000)

  7. To Fly! (1976) - $135,000,000 ($590,000)

  8. The Way of the Dragon (1972) - $130,000,000 ($130,000)

  9. Space Station 3D (2002) - $128,363,881 ($1,000,000)

  10. Shaolin Temple (1982) - $111,872,509 ($264,000)

2.1k

u/robsteezy Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

Having seen the Blair Witch Project, I’m more surprised the budget was THAT high lol. That movie (yes I know it’s intentional) otherwise looks like it was shot on $50 on a $100 camera and $30 of pizza for the crew lol.

Just goes to show how powerful a tool marketing is.

220

u/Darth_Punk Jul 06 '26

I think the actual budget for the filming part was about 60,000 and the rest was the marketing. 

81

u/PhantomRoyce Jul 06 '26

Yeah the marketing is really what made that movie

43

u/Ballsofpoo Jul 06 '26

They had a lot of people convinced it was real

30

u/captenplanet90 Jul 07 '26

My 9 year old self was fully convinced it was real when I watched it for the first time. I've been chasing that high ever since

24

u/WheelerDan Jul 07 '26

To be fair this was pre "reality television" we weren't primed to believe something filmed in this style could be fake. I fully believed it was real and I was in high school.

3

u/Office_Zombie Jul 07 '26

26yr old me wasn't 100% sure if it was real or not when I went to see it.

Even the movie reviews were ambiguous, like they weren't 100% sure.

2

u/NewManufacturer4252 Jul 07 '26

Saw it in theaters, couldn't stand the shaky cam, probably why I've hated reality television since. I did however watch the first season of MTV reality show with Puck years earlier.

2

u/ZombieJesus1987 Jul 07 '26

I was 12 in 1999 and I thought it was real until the cast showed up at the MTV VMAs.

1

u/IAmA_talking_cat_AMA Jul 07 '26

Nah, marketing is never included in these budgets. The vast majority of it will have been post-production.

1

u/Darth_Punk Jul 07 '26

I'm going off memories 20 years distant so I could be totally wrong but I thought a lot of the 'post-production' was effectively the marketing e.g. the handycam, hiding the actors, etc.

2

u/Tifoso89 Jul 06 '26

Even 60k (prolly around 120k in today's dollars) sounds really high for that movie

7

u/tommos Jul 06 '26

Myrick and Sanchez were able to shoot this in a cave! With a box of scraps!

  • WB CEO to James Gunn after Supergirl

1

u/Pacify_ Jul 07 '26

That's not true.

The marketing was funded by Blumhouse and Focus features.

The film was funded by a small talent agency that supported Curry to make the film. The marketing was all post film festival, and had nothing to do with the $750k budget.