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A few years ago, producer James Harris stumbled across The Chair, a 25-minute YouTube horror short directed by an unknown sketch comedy guy named Curry Barker.

Harris spends a lot of time scrolling through shorts; finding undiscovered directors is the bread and butter of Tea Shop Productions, the shingle he runs with partner Mark Lane. But The Chair felt different. It looked cinematic, and Harris believed that if he could get Barker a bigger budget, the fledgling filmmaker could make something special for theaters.

That something special became Obsession, which has upended Hollywood since its arrival on May 15. It already stands as Tea Shop’s highest-grossing film with $95.8 million globally, and in its second weekend was up an unheard of 39 percent from its first.

It’s all part of a fairy tale eight months for the movie that began when Focus picked it up out of the Toronto Film Festival for $15 million in September.

Since opening weekend, Harris has been fielding texts from independent producers, who see the movie as an affirmation that they can make an impact working outside the studio system. Folks inside the system are also sending well-wishes, saying they believe they can learn lessons from Obsession, which took a grabby concept — a young man wishes his crush would love him — combined it with an emerging filmmaker, and threw in a cast of unknowns to create an out-of-nowhere hit.

“To actually take the chance on the first movie is something that we feel there is a market for. We can work with financial partners to take that risk,” says Harris of working with new filmmakers like Barker.

For Harris and his Tea Shop partner, Lane, Obsession marks a moment in the sun for the British pals who were university roommates at The Surrey Institute of Art & Design in the 2000s.

“I really don’t know how the industry perceives us,” says Lane. “For a long time, there was a feeling that we were operating without anyone’s knowledge. That’s probably changed now.”

Harris and Lane have produced 40 movies, including mainstream hits like Mandy Moore shark thriller 47 Meters Down and high-concept cult hits like Fall, both of which launched franchises. There’s also the well-regarded, 2024 Nicolas Cage movie The Surfer, among many others. In addition to newcomers, they also work with more seasoned hands, such as 47 Meters Down’s Johannes Roberts. Most importantly, they primarily work outside the system to maintain control for themselves and their filmmakers.

“Your budget starts going up, and then maybe you lose the freedom of who you cast, or maybe the financial partners want more say,” says Harris.

Harris lives in Los Angeles, while Lane is in London. The two operate as each other’s halves when it comes to business. But the pair didn’t begin their relationship auspiciously. Specifically, their first week at university, Harris punched Lane in the nose.

“Let’s just say it was university Freshers Week, and I probably deserved it,” Lane says, without getting into specifics of what happened. Harris adds, as both men laugh: “He definitely deserved it.”

After university, they lived together in London while pursuing different career paths. Harris worked on low-budget indies, and Lane started a career in film sales. Around 2009, Harris was developing a few features that he asked Harris to help him produce and sell, the heist movie Tower Block, featuring a young Jack O’Connell, and the zombie feature Cockneys vs. Zombies. Lane soon decided he couldn’t do his day job and produce, so he left to work with Harris full-time.

The lean and mean company employees five people, including producer Leonora Darby, whose credits include The Surfer. Sometimes with Obsession they will bring on a producing partner, like Haley Nicole Johnson, who was a key force on the movie. Above all, they pride themselves on doing it all — from developing scripts to securing financing to seeing a movie through production, post-production and the sale.

2017’s 47 Meters Down was a turning point for the duo. It was the first time they put their own skin in the game, funding an underwater film test themselves for about $8,000, which was a good chunk of money for them at the time.

“No one could get their head around how you could shoot a movie underwater for less than $100 million,” recalls Harris. The test showed you could indeed do so, and the movie grossed $62.1 million globally. A sequel arrived in 2019, with a third installment already filmed.

Another key movie was Fall, about two women stranded atop a decommissioned, 2,000-ft tower. Their friend Scott Mann had been trying to get a much larger movie off the ground, but it kept falling apart.

“We said like, ‘Try and get some control back. Come up with something that could feel like a theatrical idea that isn’t going to be so reliant on actors and [other] pieces.” The filmmaker came up with Fall, which became a sleeper hit when it landed on Netflix, and has a sequel due out in August from Jigsaw filmmakers, the Spierig Brothers.

Historically, Harris and Lane have had a “one for them, one for us” mentality. In their case, a “one for them” might mean some movies they come aboard to produce for a studio partner, rather than developing it from the ground up.

“We’re proud of the quality threshold of our movies, and even if some of them vary in budgets, we try and make them all feel much bigger than they ever are,” says Harris.

The success of Obsession does not prompt them to rethink their business plans. A few years ago, there was a horror arms race, with studios snatching up producers with exclusive deals, such as Barbarian producers BoulderLight heading to Paramount. Harris doesn’t expect themselves to follow suit in that regard, nor do they want to dive into big-budget filmmaking.

But Obsession does give them more breathing room and freedom to pursue things they like.

“As an independent producer, you end up doing some movies for financial reasons rather than creative reasons. A success like this allows you to be more selective about some of those projects,” says Harris. “You still want to be doing cool stuff — and it doesn’t really change.”

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Obsession is now playing in theaters. Check out all of The Hollywood Reporter‘s coverage here.