‘Obsession’ Just Dethroned ‘The Blair Witch Project’ as the Highest-Grossing Horror Film Ever Made on a Sub-$1M Budget

Horror cinema has always had a complicated relationship with money. Some of the genre’s most enduring legends were born from shoestring budgets and maximum imagination, and few films proved that more definitively than ‘The Blair Witch Project,’ which for over two decades stood as a monument to what scrappy independent filmmaking could achieve at the worldwide box office. That record, long considered untouchable, has now officially fallen.

Written and directed by Curry Barker, ‘Obsession‘ tells the story of Bear, played by Michael Johnston, a music store employee who uses a mysterious novelty item called the “One Wish Willow” to wish that his longtime crush Nikki, played by Inde Navarrette, would love him more than anyone else in the world.

Originally premiering at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Midnight Madness program, the indie hit was subsequently picked up by Focus Features for wide theatrical release. From those origins, few could have predicted what was coming.

According to @FilmUpdates, ‘Obsession’ has now surpassed ‘The Blair Witch Project’ at the worldwide box office, dethroning a film that held the record as the highest-grossing movie ever released on a production budget under $1 million.

That previous record holder, ‘The Blair Witch Project,’ pulled in a domestic total of over $140 million and an international haul of over $107 million, all on an initial budget estimated between $35,000 and $60,000. It was the kind of achievement that defined an era and inspired generations of low-budget filmmakers.

‘Obsession’ has now earned $224.8 million worldwide, including $152.1 million domestically and $72.7 million internationally, against a reported production budget of between $750,000 and $1 million. With a fourth domestic weekend of $25.6 million and a decline of only 7 percent, ‘Obsession’ also claimed the record for the biggest fourth weekend ever for a horror movie, surpassing the $24.3 million ‘The Blair Witch Project’ posted in its fourth frame back in 1999.

What makes this run even more remarkable is how broadly the film has resonated with both critics and audiences.

Comscore’s head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian, who has covered the box office for more than 30 years, told Variety that he had never seen a movie have a jump like ‘Obsession’ did in its second weekend, calling it “indicative of audiences embracing the film,” with ‘Obsession’ earning an A-minus CinemaScore exit poll grade and a 94 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. That kind of dual approval across critics and general audiences is exceptionally rare in the horror space.

Barker, still in his mid-twenties and previously known for viral internet sketch comedy, has already shot his follow-up film, the horror-comedy ‘Anything But Ghosts,’ produced by Jason Blum and horror titan Roy Lee. Industry tracking currently projects ‘Obsession’ to gross between $300 million and $400 million worldwide before its theatrical run concludes. If those projections hold, this would push the gap between ‘Obsession’ and ‘The Blair Witch Project’ even further into uncharted territory for micro-budget cinema.

Whether ‘Obsession’ ultimately becomes one of the most profitable films in Hollywood history or simply one of its most surprising, it has already secured its place in the record books. Drop your thoughts below on whether you think ‘Obsession’ deserves to dethrone the iconic ‘Blair Witch Project,’ or if the original still holds a special place no box office number can touch.