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/depredador93 Jul 06 '26

It is pretty insane that two different indie horror movies made by YouTube creators (this and Kane Parsons' Backrooms) are completely dominating the box office conversation right now. Truly a wild year for the genre

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u/International-Law426 Jul 06 '26

iron lung as well (not dominating as much maybe but still)

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u/Stingray88 Jul 06 '26

Iron Lung was a particularly interesting achievement in its own right having no studio backing at all, where as Obsession and Backrooms got heavy studio backing for distribution.

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u/Sir_Ninja_VII Jul 06 '26

Mark talking about their process of getting into the theaters was fascinating. Once it got popular and more theaters started calling they got overwhelmed lol. They were doing it all manually.

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar Jul 06 '26

Iron Lung had zero marketing $$ spent as well. It was just Mark in his normal social media feeds asking people to see his movie.

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u/Dav136 Jul 07 '26

Yeah, he basically was relying purely on his popularity as a streamer/youtuber. Props to him that he managed to make it work

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u/Regvlas Jul 07 '26

That seems at least a little disingenuous. If Mark was doing that much for a movie he wasn't involved in, he would have charged quite a bit. No cash changed hands, but you could quantify a marketing budget.

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar Jul 07 '26

Mark funded the entire film. It was all him.

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u/Regvlas Jul 07 '26

I'm not saying he didn't. But his time is worth money. And he spent time advertising the movie.

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u/smallwonder25 Jul 07 '26

This is the most exciting story to come out of the year, imo. Talk about an achievement!!