Obsession/The Mandalorian and Grogu

Blumhouse, Disney

There is effectively no precedent to describe what’s happening with Obsession right now, the low-budget horror film that has achieved milestones like increasing 39% in revenue in its second weekend after word-of-mouth spread.

But that was even more impressive given that it was going up against the first new Star Wars movie in seven years, The Mandalorian and Grogu, which did win the weekend handily. But now? Obsession is…beating it.

Daily box office tracking is now showing that Obsession is now beating The Mandalorian and Grogu handily as of this Wednesday, earning $5.6 million domestically to Mando’s $4.1 million on that day. And again, this is the second week of Obsession’s release (this Wednesday is practically a non-existent drop from last Wednesday) and this is Mando’s first week.

It also appears that Obsession could be heading into a third weekend where its revenue increases from last week’s $24 million. That would now be going up against both The Mandalorian and Grogu and fellow YouTuber-directed, low-budget horror film Backrooms, which is now projected to make a mammoth $40-60 million, resulting in back-to-back hits for the genre. But Obsession is still in a league of its own in terms of its earning trajectory.

One open question about Obsession is when it’s coming to digital. It appears the original plan may have been for it to arrive on June 2nd, just a few days from now, but while that has not been publicly shot down, there would be nothing logical about keeping that date rather than extending it to a month or the traditional 45 day window to see just how high it can go, as it’s about to sail past $100 million in earnings globally, with some believing it could hit $200 million, which would be 200x its tiny budget.

The news is less good for The Mandalorian and Grogu, which has already passed its $165 budget, but is tracking below Solo, the movie that did so poorly it helped scare Disney off doing Star Wars features entirely. That ended with a $392 million run, compared to Disney’s other five Star Wars movies doing a billion or more. Mando will not come close to that. The next film to be released, Star Wars Starfighter, is out next year and a big risk as it appears to feature no existing Star Wars characters from past movies or TV shows, which would be a first for Disney. It may be some time before they find their footing in the film space. And the TV space, for that matter, with almost zero returning or new shows on the way that we know about publicly, short of Ahsoka season 2 after a three-year wait.

We’ll see how this weekend goes between Obsession, Backrooms and Mando. It’s going to be wild.

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