That’s what Curry Barker was first told by his reps and those around him about the domestic box office prospects for his horror pic Obsession. He wasn’t expecting too much. Then the horror romance wound up making more than Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, $512.6M to $345.5M at the global box office.

In a sit-down at TIFF with his leading Obsession star Inde Navarrette, moderated by the fest’s Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky, the duo reminisced how their lives have changed over the last year following the pic’s world premiere at TIFF where it was snatched up by Focus Features for $15M. The first change they noticed was an upgrade in their flight and hotel this year versus last when they arrived as a pure indie (Obsession was financed by Capstone for $750K).

However, had Obsession opened to $20M, Barker shared there was a plan for him and his reps to get tattoos.

“It didn’t (do that). It made $17M. So we’re like ‘Ok, I guess we’re not getting the tattoos…still really cool’,” he said, “And then the next weekend it made $27M. It was like ‘Holy shit!’ That’s unheard of for it to go up!.”

Interesting backstory, Barker had Obsession tested and the audience was quite unhappy with Bear (Michael Johnston) and his handling of off-the-rails g.f. Nikki (Navarrette), who he put a love-binding toxic spell on.

“People were saying that they were frustrated with Bear and they didn’t understand why he doesn’t just try to do more to fix it (the spell.”

“They were like ‘Why isn’t he going back to the crystal shop? Why isn’t he doing more research and trying to fix it?’ We got an overwhelming amount of people wanting us to do that,” said the filmmaker.

“Then I was like ‘Oh, wait, that’s not what I want to do. I don’t want to try and fix it. It’s way more interesting that there’s a passivity in his character. He’s what I would call a passive antagonist,” explained Barker.

“So, it became clear to me that the way to fix the movie was not to make Bear try and fix it sooner, but to actually make it even more clear to the audience that he wants to make it work. That’s the thing that he becomes active on trying to make this work,” said Barker.

Barker thus had reshoots, which he praised his financier for; those additional resources proved to the filmmaker that his backers had complete faith in his vision.

In regards to his how his career changed: Barker no longer gets ‘Nos’ when he heads into pitch meetings. Before Obsession, he would constantly come up with new ideas which were shot down. Now, the response he gets is, “‘Curry, what is it you want to do?'” shared the director.

“It’s a little more challenging, he added, “I can pitch anything.”

In terms of Navarrette’s streak, she recently appeared at D23 where it was announced she’s playing Rogue in the Marvel Studio’s revival of X-Men.

“Everything has changed for me, I’m now in rooms I could never even imagine,” said Navarrette about her life post TIFF 2025, “I’m pitching my own projects and am hopefully can produce and direct my own stuff.”

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