Los Angeles, California - Low-cost horror movie Obsession from first-time director Curry Barker is on track to become one of the most profitable films of all time, with the cinema sensation piling up global revenues of more than $400 million.
After premiering at the Toronto Film Festival last year and releasing at the beginning of May, it has become a word-of-mouth phenomenon over the last two months with fright-loving Gen Z audiences in particular.
Its success has catapulted 26-year-old Barker from a YouTube video creator into Hollywood's A-league with a first feature-length film that cost just $750,000 to $1 million to make.
"In terms of the ratio between the worldwide box office and the production budget, Obsession is going to be the biggest success of all time, which is extraordinary," Bruce Nash, founder of industry-tracking website The Numbers, told AFP.
With ticket sales of around $430 million worldwide, it has already overtaken the 1999 supernatural thriller The Blair Witch Project, which made around $250 million on a full budget of $600,000, according to Nash.
In absolute terms, Hollywood mega-hits such as the Avatar films, Frozen, or Titanic made more money, but with blockbuster budgets several hundred times the one available to Barker.
The Obsession plot is a simple but original idea from Barker: a young man uses a lucky charm known as the "One Wish Willow" to wish that his long-time friend and crush falls madly in love with him.
The violent and unsettling consequences deliver enough scares to thrill even a hardened horror fan, while raising questions around toxic relationships, dating culture, and consent.
It was turned into a cash bonanza for Focus Features, part of Hollywood studio Universal, which bought the distribution rights for $15 million at the Toronto Film Festival last year.
Barker has several new projects already in the pipeline: a second feature, Anything But Ghosts, in which he acts alongside Tomlinson, while he has also been tapped to direct a new version of the 1974 slasher classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
"I have a lot to weigh, and that’s where the stress really comes from. I don’t know what to do next," he told The Hollywood Reporter.