Focus Features has confirmed that Obsession, the breakout horror film from debut director Curry Barker, will begin streaming exclusively on Peacock on July 17 — just 63 days after it opened in U.S. theaters on May 15.
The move comes earlier than many anticipated, due to the film’s continued success: Obsession spent eight consecutive weeks growing its box office total week over week, a pattern that has become one of the more unusual stories in recent studio history.
Deadline reports the film has reached $249.5 million domestically, with foreign grosses adding another $158.1 million for a global total surpassing the $400 million mark.
That performance is even more striking given what the film cost to make. Financier Capstone backed Obsession at $750,000, and the film has now been recognized as the highest-grossing movie ever produced on a maximum budget of $1 million. Obsession also joins Sinners as the only original films since 2018 to top $200 million domestically, and currently ranks seventh among all 2026 releases at the box office.
The film stars Michael Johnston as Baron "Bear" Bailey, a hopeless romantic too afraid to confess his feelings for co-worker Nikki Freeman, played by Inde Navarrette. After Bear makes a wish for Nikki to love him above everything else, she becomes dangerously obsessed with him.
Amidst all of the praise that Obsession is getting, legendary director Christopher Nolan spoke about the movie, as well as Kane Parsons’ Backrooms, in a July interview with The Telegraph.
"I think cinema is vital and essential and continues to transform itself," Nolan said, before referencing the films. "We've got all these great new young voices in movies, making the medium their own and moving it forward."
Nolan praised the filmmakers while also explaining how they’re leading cinema into a great, non-AI place.
"I've never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime," he explained. "So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation's reaction, they're utterly rejecting it."
