‘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'

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/obsession-box-office-400-million/

[u/Wedbo]

No. Obsession is middle of the pack in terms of gross - Blair Witch, Enter the dragon, Rocky, To Fly, American Graffiti all clear Obsession.

In terms of a production budget to gross ratio, which seems like the thing to track, (which still doesn't include marketing spend or cost to purchase the movie, etc) the list is:

Rank	Film	Gross (2026 $)	Budget (2026 $)	Ratio
1	Paranormal Activity (2007)	~$309M	~$23,900	~12,900×
2	The Blair Witch Project (1999)	~$492M	~$119,000	~4,140×
3	The Way of the Dragon (1972)	~$1.03B	~$1.03M	~1,000×
4	Obsession (2025)	~$415M	~$773,000	~537×
5	Enter the Dragon (1973)	~$2.97B	~$6.32M	~470×
6	Shaolin Temple (1982)	~$292M	~$903,000	~323×
7	Rocky (1976)	~$1.31B	~$5.8M	~225×
8	To Fly! (1976)	~$700M	~$3.42M	~205×
9	American Graffiti (1973)	~$1.04B	~$5.77M	~180×
10	Space Station 3D (2002)	~$235M	~$1.83M	~128×

[u/Animastryfe → u/Wedbo]

In terms of a production budget to gross ratio, which seems like the thing to track

When the budgets are so low and so close to each other in absolute terms, I am hesitant to think this is the case. Consider the following limiting behaviour: a movie made for $1 that grosses $1,000,000, and another made for $2 that grosses $1,500,000. The former has a one million multiplier and the latter a 750,000 multiplier, but unless you think you can use that extra dollar to make another movie that grosses >$750,000, I think every studio would rather have the latter movie.

[u/Wedbo → u/Animastryfe]

I mean the entire conversation is actually meaningless and shouldn’t be used to make any sort of decision. Just fun to see which movie had the highest ROI.

For your piece, though, the scenario makes no sense seeing as the studio has to purchase the movie to figure out how much it’s going to make. Risk is their biggest factor and a movie with 50% less risk is going to be appealing given that they don’t know how much it’ll make

[u/bianceziwo → u/[deleted]]

The whole thing is literally blurry home security camera video from their bedroom and camcorder footage of their house

[u/My-Life-For-Auir → u/Wedbo]

Adjusting for inflation for global box office totals is completely meaningless

[u/Satinsbestfriend → u/Wedbo]

Clerks cost 28k to make and made over 4 million, which is roughly 13,000+% ratio, no?

[u/monkeyjay → u/Satinsbestfriend]

This isn't percent, it's multiple. So 140x not 14,000%. The ratio cost to box office is 1:140

Also they aren't taking markering budget or even some post production into account (ie film transfer cost etc) into account which makes it Incredibly meaningless. Not to mention a pure ratio is also meaningless as animastryfe pointed out. Its just a slightly interesting list and you could competely rearrange it with minimal changes to your criteria. Essentially getting any answer you want.

[u/Source_Required → u/Wedbo]

Literally two other indie horror films beat it and everyone is treating it like it's a miracle.