The breakout hit movie of 2026, Obsession, is now positioning itself to sweep the awards season, with Inde Navarette and Curry Barker leading the charge. The title, which smashed box office expectations earlier this year, plans to enter every eligible category at the Oscars. This obsession with Obsession is ostensibly a sentiment shared by cast, crew and movie patrons alike, or is it? 

Curry Barker, a founder of the YouTube channel “That’s a bad idea,” made his feature film debut with Obsession, receiving a budget of $750,000 for the picture. Focus Pictures eventually acquired the distribution rights to the film for just south of $15 million. A big investment from Focus Pictures at the time, taking a chance on the YouTuber-turned-director. However, in previous years, famed content creator Markiplier saw some success with his movie adaptation of the video game Iron Lung. Additionally, the creator of the famed horror YouTube series Backrooms, Kane Parsons, released his own film by the same name just weeks after Obsession. Suddenly, there is newfound faith in Hollywood for youth trying to make the transition from the phone screen to the film screen. 

The investment from Focus Pictures immediately paid off, with Obsession earning $17 million in its debut weekend, $23 million in its second weekend and $26 million in its third weekend. An unheard-of feat, the film becomes the first since Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to increase in box office earnings across the first three........

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