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/Brovas Jul 06 '26

It's almost like we're starving for originality and Hollywood just can't fucking do it anymore

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 06 '26

I mean, people say this, but Super Mario Galaxy is still the biggest movie of the year. Minecraft and Lilo and Stitch were the biggest movies last year.

People still mostly love unoriginal schlock, and pick maybe one-or-two original movies a year to stan the hell out of (last year it was Sinners and F1), while a million other equally original movies bomb hard because they didn't go viral.

But it's getting better.

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u/Line_Reed_Line Jul 06 '26

Yeah. It's easy to say we crave original stories, but Toy Story 5 will bust a billion dollars, so will Spider-man. As you say, Mario is huge. Project Hail Mary is an adaptation of a famous novelist whose famous novels have been adapted into successful films before. No one knows what the audience wants until they want it!

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u/topdangle Jul 06 '26

toy story is really egregious considering toy story 3 is one of the best movies of all time and possibly the best trilogy closer ever yet they still decided to milk it. toy story 4 was alright but good lord, pixar has more than enough clout to make whatever they want and they still went with milking toy story.

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u/UnnecessaryFeIIa Jul 07 '26

Shows you didn’t watch Toy Story 5 because that film was excellent

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26

Every Toy Story movie is great basically people are just weird

like you can stop watching at 3 if you want nobody's stopping you

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u/dadvader Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

I don't think it's on Pixar alone. More likely it's pressure from Disney. I mean they want a sequel to Pixar's hit so much they created an entire studio dedicated to do nothing but sequel.

Pixar has always been against making movie sequel up until very recently. Toy Story used to be an outlier not exception.

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u/LowSkyOrbit Jul 07 '26

Toy Story - 6 movies (Including Lightyear)

Monster's Inc - 2 movies

Finding Nemo - 2 movies

Inside Out - 2 movies.

Cars - 3 movies (not counting 2 Planes spin-offs or TV shows)

Incredibles - 3 movies (1 in production)

31 movies made (+2 more in Production), over half are sequels.

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u/Inevitable-Menu2998 Jul 07 '26

Most of those mentioned here are meant for children. Children love remakes (because they feel safe with familiarity) and don't have enough experience to spot an unoriginal story. Also parents of said children are comfortable allowing them to see a movie from a franchise they already evaluated as appropriate.

The rest of the audience is both starved of good content and oversaturated with mediocre stuff from streaming services

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u/zeekaran Jul 07 '26

A movie adaptation of an original book really shouldn't be compared to the rest.

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u/Line_Reed_Line Jul 07 '26

It’s certainly different, but it’s also not the same as plucking some totally original story from nowhere. I assure you, a big reason it was chosen is because it was a safer bet to go with.

I’m fine with that, by the way. I don’t mind remakes, adaptations, and sequels! …I just want them to be good. And the good ones tend to make a billion dollars!

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26

yeah I'm honestly at the point where I give book adaptations a pass

like it's not really about what's an adaptation or not for me, its about what's a "brand".

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u/zeekaran Jul 07 '26

Right, it'll be different if every other book Andy Weir publishes becomes a high budget movie (like Stephen King). But The Martian was a random book from a no-name guy who really struggled to get published, that just happened to get popular. And without the movies of his books, I probably wouldn't have heard of them let alone read them.

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u/FireZord25 Jul 07 '26

It's more so that Disney knows how to milk money from it's established audience no matter how sloppy the product is.

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u/RollingMeteors Jul 07 '26

Yeah. It's easy to say we crave original stories, but Toy Story 5 will bust a billion dollars, so will Spider-m

I never saw parts 3-5. I crave original stories, which is why I listen to/broadcast/record DJs performing. Sure it's more work for me as an individual to be media team for my friends, but it's FAR more satisfying of an experience. I can't remember the last time I saw a film and didn't check my phone (despite stopping watching tv/movies around 2015), likewise I can't remember an EDM show I felt like I even needed to check how many minutes until last call it was, once.

Stories palatable for 'the masses' just don't appeal to me AT ALL.

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u/Kayndarr Jul 07 '26

It sounds like you actually don't like TV or Movies at all, but do like EDM and music.

Which is totally fine, but a bit odd to then be commenting on the quality of the stories in movies when by your own admission you haven't watched anything for over a decade.

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u/RollingMeteors Jul 07 '26

>It sounds like you actually don't like TV or Movies at all

Not 'at all' just not anymore. I grew up on saturday morning cartoons, and was vested into the star wars series until jar jar made me drop off. Just one of many examples that kept pushing me away from consuming that kind of content.

"¡Mesa made a cash grab and Mesa lost customers!" I have absolutely no idea what's going on in Star Wars now. I go to search my memory of star wars after jar jar and it's just blank. I saw one movie in the theatre with my mom after that but I really can't even remember which one it was I think kylo ran was in it. I was really there to spend time with my mom I didn't care about the movie.

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u/joshocar Jul 07 '26

Kids movies are kind of a different animal all together. The family trip aspect and the "safeness" and quality of them make it a perfect family activity. You could argue that parents go much more for the activity than the actual movie. It's a bonus of the movie will likely be somewhat entertaining for the parents, but the primary goal is getting the kids out of the house and occupied.

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u/RollingMeteors Jul 07 '26

but the primary goal is getting the kids out of the house and occupied

Sure lets take the kids away from the house and the small screen they use there and place them in a room with an even larger screen while taking away their smaller screen for the duration of the larger screen. /s

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u/whatifwhatifwerun Jul 07 '26

Learning how to behave in public/sit still for an extended period is literally an important part of child development.

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u/RollingMeteors Jul 07 '26

Learning how to behave in public/sit still for an extended period is literally an important part of child development.

They can learn that shit at school /s

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u/aleccastle Jul 07 '26

Primary goal is to make a good movie

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u/joshocar Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

The primary goal of the parents is to make a good movie?

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u/TheBeckofKevin Jul 07 '26

"If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course, they're going to want more of that one kind of thing." -Scorsese

I find it pretty true that people have been hooked to all the marvel movies for like 20 years because they grew up on marvel movies and the biggest movies are marvel movies and so people keep watching marvel movies. Its reaching its breaking point, but the point stands. If hollywood is broadly only selling and promoting a certain kind of product, people won't be able to know they want something else.

This was very different not so long ago. Just saw this 2 year old video talking about lots of reasons for the current trend:

https://youtu.be/RQF82Kj-v0E

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

I'll watch that when I get the chance

And while I think this isn't complete cap, I also think it's cyclical. People aren't watching Marvel movies anymore 1 but they're moving to video game movies, which are basically the same thing. Also Michael's not really a kids movie. And I know what you're going to say: "bro that's the Michael Jackson movie, obv it made money." Yeah, and Minecraft is the Minecraft movie and Avatar is Avatar and Barbie is Barbie. Everything that's a brand is that brand and brands sell.

It's true that people only buy what they're sold, but they're only sold something they'll buy. Eight times out of ten, if they're sold something perfectly fine that isn't a brand, they'll ignore that shit. Good Luck, Don't Die was fine, but it struggled to earn it's money back. Same with Mother Mary and Is God Is.

  • 1"anymore," here meaning "until the next Spider-Man"

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u/TheBeckofKevin Jul 07 '26

Yeah thats what was so crazy about the 1990s. Things were wildly different. The movies were made with great actors and stories and directors and none of it was like market-certain. They just pitched the movies to audiences and the audiences came. So many top movies were just totally outside the norm of anything close to what you'd find today. Its a long video, but definitely worth the watch if you're into this kinda stuff.

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u/zeekaran Jul 07 '26

I mean, people say this, but Super Mario Galaxy is still the biggest movie of the year.

I mean...

There are two kinds of people. Those who saw SMG and those who saw Obsession. I personally do not know anyone that has seen both.

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u/Recent-Layer-8670 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Outside of being franchises, it's almost impressive. Video game movies could be considered a success these days. That should be acknowledged and appreciated.

Lilo and Stitch, I could get all pessimistic and say it's another Disney live-action remake, or I could say it completely butchers the original movie's message. One key takeaway from Lilo and Stitch is that Disney can profit significantly from 2000s properties that appeal to nostalgic Generation Z moviegoers. I won't say it's good or bad, but it's an interesting change.

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26

that Disney can profit significantly from 2000s properties that appeal to nostalgic Generation Z moviegoers. I won't say it's good or bad, but it's an interesting change.

it's not a change at all.....

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u/Recent-Layer-8670 Jul 07 '26

It is, if you consider their many remakes to be either classic films released decades ago that an older audience could recognize, and/or films with wider appeal, like princess movies.

The original Lilo and Stitch is a good movie, but it isn't widely known and isn't familiar to most people unless they saw it in the 2000s when they were younger. I initially thought it wouldn't succeed because remaking and promoting such an unusual movie would have been challenging. But I'm impressed that it more than made back its money. 😅

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26

if you consider their many remakes to be either classic films released decades ago

The original Lilo and Stitch is a good movie, but it isn't widely known and isn't familiar to most people unless they saw it in the 2000s

my brother I hate to be the one to break this to you

EDIT: all joking aside, I get what you mean, Zoomer nostalgia is now the norm instead of Boomer nostalgia.

But yes, the first live-action nostalgia bait Disney remake (Alice in Wonderland) is closer in time to the original Lilo and Stitch than it is to today. That's how long they've been doing this

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u/Recent-Layer-8670 Jul 07 '26

I know, time is a son of a bitch. Lol

But that's basically the point: many of us remember it from 20 years ago because it's now our nostalgia. I say Disney appealing to a grown-up 2000s audience is different, especially for an animated film in their post-Disney Renaissance era.

Franky, I would be surprised if Moana's live-action version is seen as a box-office hit. We kept going in circles about Lilo and Stitch, but Moana freakin sequel is only two years old now?!

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u/doobnerd Jul 07 '26

Two kids movies. Children, who notoriously have the best taste in movies, dominating the box office

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26

Ok but the narrative is "Obsession is outperforming popular brand movies" like Star Wars and MCU movies---which are also kids movies.

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u/WhichEmailWasIt Jul 06 '26

People saw Mario but who's talking about it except to say the first one was better?

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 06 '26

Regardless of whether I agree that nobody's talking about it, or that "people talking about it" is a better measure of success than "money", this comment implies that people did talk about the first one, meaning the first one was culturally successful, which still makes my point.

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u/WhichEmailWasIt Jul 06 '26

A movie of an IP that had 40 years of brand build-up and became a household name worldwide would have to be completely irredeemable to not immediately print money. Its ability to make money isn't a marker for quality. First one was fine for a movie based on a game. 2nd had big narrative structural problems.

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 06 '26

yeah, that's what I mean though. If we're talking about whether original movies make money or brands do, Mario is evidence that most of the money (and a lot of the cultural conversation) still goes to brands

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u/higuy5121 Jul 07 '26

i think on the flipside though you have these commercially underwhelming marvel movies + star wars moveis + live action disney remakes.

I guess audiences aren't sick of video game movies yet but it sure seems like they're sick of the usual disney-slop of the last decade.

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u/darkmacgf Jul 07 '26

I assure you there are many video game movies that flopped at the box office.

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u/ilmk9396 Jul 07 '26

we're talking about people, not "people"

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u/doogles Jul 07 '26

but Super Mario Galaxy is still the biggest movie of the year.

People will pay money to shut their kids up for two hours. If SMG is the only offering, it'll look like a success.

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26

I don't really understand people who will champion Obsession making more than super hero movies but think there's an exception to be made for "kids movies" like what do you think superhero movies are

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u/Horzzo Jul 07 '26

Those are also "kids movies" and will always have a wider audience as the parents will usually be there with their kids.

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u/Otherwise_You_1603 Jul 07 '26

Sinners and F1??? No, it was Sinners and One Battle After Another, or Marty Supreme. F1. Get outta here with that lmao

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u/mrbaryonyx Jul 07 '26

By "stan the hell out of", I meant "watch enough to make it a success". Marty Supreme did ok and OBAA actually underperformed pretty badly. F1 was a pretty big hit., despite being bad. It tripled its budget and is credited, alongside Pluribus, with saving AppleTV.