He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

A movement in horror that began nearly a decade ago seems to have come full circle, with the pioneering movie of this wave being overtaken at the box office by a new hit. The new film’s success also serves as a passing-of-the-baton moment between two generations of horror filmmakers. The first generation, the millennials, were shown the way by Ari Aster, who broke out with Hereditary in 2018. The new Gen Z horror filmmakers all honed their craft on YouTube. The most successful of the bunch, Curry Barker, is just 26 years old. The youngest of this new wave of horror directors is Kane Parsons, who was hired to direct the upcoming and now critically acclaimed movie Backrooms when he was still a teenager.

Ahead of Backrooms’ imminent debut, it’s Barker’s movie that has emerged as an industry-altering hit. We’re talking, of course, about Obsession. The movie exceeded box-office expectations in its opening weekend and then pulled off the unprecedented achievement of delivering a higher second-weekend gross. Not only did it earn more in its sophomore frame than it did in its first, but *Obsession *also delivered a jump of 36% — it’s a record that will probably not be broken for quite some time. It’s extremely rare for a wide release to deliver an increase in its box office revenue, but a 36% bump is genuinely unheard of.

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

Thanks to its record-breaking performance in less than two weeks of release, Obsession has grossed around $85 million at the worldwide box office. This is already **more than 100 times its reported budget **of $750,000, which makes it one of the most successful movies of all time by return on investment. By comparison, Paranormal Activity grossed nearly $200 million on a budget of $450,000 and The Blair Witch Project grossed around $250 million on a budget of around $750,000. With a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score, Obsession is overtaking the $90 million lifetime haul of Hereditary as we speak, and it should comfortably pass the coveted $100 million mark worldwide this weekend. It’ll face direct competition from Backrooms, which is expected to break A24’s opening weekend box office record on the strength of incredible pre-release buzz and positive reviews. If projections hold, it will surpass Hereditary’s lifetime domestic haul in three days. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.