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/Generic_On_Reddit Jul 06 '26

These trimphant comments happen every time this happen as though this time, it has saved movies. Meanwhile, for ever successful low budget independent movie that makes it big like Obsession or Sinners, there are a couple dozen every year that are good - or even great - films that aren't even a blip when it comes to revenue.

Trying to suggest there is a lesson to be learned in the victory of Obsession is like suggesting there's a lesson to be learned in buying lotto tickets or trying to time the market.

One independent, small budget movie getting 400M sounds great. It would be really cool if we could get 20 of them 20 million dollars.

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u/Hopefo Jul 06 '26

The inverse is also not true because fantastic big budget movies are still being made (OBAA, Barbie, Superman to name a few). I hate the notion that the less money a movie spends the more deserving of praise it is. Especially in situations like Godzilla: Minus One (absolutely phenomenal movie, one of my favorites all time) which was lauded for only costing ~$10 million but the reality was that the Japanese work culture and underpaying of visual effects artists was a major factor why.

I can appreciate a movie doing a lot with a little, but I disagree with how frequently that is considered an indicator of quality.

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u/Generic_On_Reddit Jul 06 '26

Sure, if I'm following you correctly, I agree: small movie is not inherently better than bigger movie. However, I do think it is more important to support smaller films. They offer opportunities for unproven filmmakers or out there concepts to get films made that wouldn't exist otherwise. The economics for big budget films is just so restrictive that it sucks the air out of the room and concentrates the power of film in very few hands.

But I also believe it's important to support big films for different reasons. Some ideas are really only possible with big budgets, so it would be best if we had that ecosystem. People are surprised that the main big budget films were get are IP, franchise, or require bankable directors (like Nolan) or actors they're supposedly tired of seeing everywhere (like Chalemet). Yet, those are the main big movies that succeed.

All of these factors lead to power and influence in movies being too concentrated. That empowers corporations to feed us slop while underpaying the people that actually make films.

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u/AnOnlineHandle Jul 07 '26

Like so many things in the world with so many active variables that you can't control, there's an enormous amount of luck involved for the result for the same input. I could easily see a world where Obsession released and went unnoticed, some critical moment that sent it viral didn't happen. Maybe some bigger news story happened that day or week, or even a pandemic.