Few administrators shoot their debut film, land it in an enormous fest, and discover themselves at the center of a bidding war. It’s the kind of factor that might mess along with your head, particularly when you’re in your twenties and your greatest successes to this point have been posting shorts to YouTube.
However Jason Blum says that Curry Barker appeared surprisingly calm after they met in individual for the primary time, a day after the filmmaker’s Obsession screened at Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition to a rapturous response. The $750,000 movie would go on to promote to Focus Features for round $15 million within the following days.
“A lot of times, someone in that position is in shock and off their game,” says Blum. Not so with Barker, who was 25 throughout September’s TIFF. “He was so grateful and modest, but not falsely modest. He was very clear about what he wanted to do next, and this wasn’t going to change his mind.”
Written and directed by Barker, Obsession tells the story of Bear (Michael Johnston), who makes use of a mysterious novelty merchandise referred to as “One Wish Willow” to want that his longtime crush Nikki (Inde Navarrette) would love him greater than anybody within the fucking world. His want comes true to horrifying outcomes which have received over critics, who gave it a 94 p.c ranking on Rotten Tomatoes. It dramatically over-performed this weekend, the place it grossed $17.2 million domestically, up from projections within the $10 million vary. Its phrase of mouth has been robust, with the movie declining simply 11 p.c from Saturday to Sunday, a maintain hardly ever seen.
Barker has already shot his follow-up movie, the horror-comedy Anything But Ghosts, primarily based on a spec he wrote and stars in along with his artistic accomplice, Cooper Tomlinson. As optimistic buzz about Obsession swirled earlier than TIFF, Blum and fellow horror titan Roy Lee each wished in on Ghosts. However in an uncommon transfer, moderately than attempt to outbid one another, they determined to group up for the primary time of their historical past to accumulate the package deal collectively.
And as Obsession hit theaters final week, Barker closed his deal to put in writing, direct and produce his tackle The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for A24, a film he landed with out having to leap by way of hoops, because of the TIFF halo round Obsession. His deal grants him a unprecedented quantity of artistic management, particularly for a younger director on an enormous IP undertaking.
It’s all a part of a wild, nine-month interval that has seen Barker go from relative obscurity to probably the most in-demand 20-something director in Hollywood.
For Lee, who produces each Something However Ghosts and Texas Chainsaw, Barker reminds him of one other protégé, Barbarian and Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger.
“Some people just have that ability: What they create is cinematic,” says Lee, who was instrumental in Barker getting the Chainsaw job. “He’s going to be following in the footsteps of Zach, just a few years behind.”
Curry Barker on the set of Obsession.
Manny Liotta / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
As a lot as issues have modified for Barker, many key issues have stayed the identical. These near the filmmaker describe him as each impressively productive and single-minded in his focus, disappearing into no matter undertaking he’s engaged on. “Obsessed” is perhaps the correct phrase.
Barker confirms this, and one of many first issues he says when hopping on a Zoom with The Hollywood Reporter is he’s actually itching to get into the edit on Something However Ghosts, as quickly as this week. (Along with directing and writing, he serves as editor on his films.)
He plans on enhancing Ghosts — a horror comedy about two scammy paranormal investigators who’re caught up in actual ghostly exercise — in his bed room within the condominium he shares with artistic accomplice Tomlinson. It’s the identical place the place he additionally served because the editor of Obsession.
In contrast to what you would possibly count on from a 20-something who’s the toast of Hollywood, you might be unlikely to search out Barker hitting Los Angeles hotspots late at night time. Working example: A childhood good friend from Barker’s native Alabama attended Might 11’s Obsession premiere and wished to exit after, nevertheless it wasn’t within the playing cards for the filmmaker, who had a day of press and different duties forward of him.
“I’m always letting down my friends that love to go out and hit the town, because I go to bed at 10 p.m.,” he says with fun. (To be honest, that’s not at all times true. THR left the Obsession celebration after 10 p.m., and Barker was nonetheless there, posing for pictures with Tomlinson and pals.)
Barker got here to Los Angeles from Alabama for movie college, the place he met Tomlinson and rapidly dropped out to construct their sketch channel, That’s a Unhealthy Thought. The duo wrote Something However Ghosts the identical method they write their sketches, which take easy ideas to excessive locations.
“We hook our laptop up to our TV, and we let the story unfold and see where things take us,” says Tomlinson. “Curry doesn’t like to be constrained to an outline. That puts you in a box. We like to see where the story goes, and so many fun things come out of it.”
Barker’s The Chair, a 2023 horror quick a few younger man (Anthony Pavone) who takes residence an vintage chair he finds on the aspect of the highway — and, in Barker style, it wrecks his life — acquired him on the radar of 47 Meters Down producer James Harris of Tea Store Productions.
“You can go on TikTok and you can find 8,000 filmmakers making kind of cool shit, right? But some of it, you’re like, ‘Oh, that looks like you made it in your house and you just used some filters,’” says Harris. Barker’s stuff was totally different. It seemed like an actual film. Harris remembers considering, “I can feel you have the cinematic language — and if we just give you more money and get you to do the same thing, that’s actually really interesting.”
Barker pitched Harris a couple of ideas, and the producer selected Obsession, lining up financing for a 20-day shoot whereas Barker wrote (and rewrote) the script.
Collaborators say that Barker is aware of what he needs and infrequently goes along with his intestine feeling. Casting director Skyler Zurn, who forged Obsession and Something However Ghosts, remembers having many conversations about how Barker wished the actors to make him really feel — that’s what he cares about, greater than if a performer is known.
“Curry provided a freedom to discover that was really refreshing,” says Zurn. “So we really could search for the feeling. We were waiting to be moved by each person, and that’s what led our casting decisions.”
Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston in Obsession.
Focus Options/Courtesy Everett Assortment
Barker constructed his profession by taking part in moneyball, discovering methods to stretch a greenback and enlisting robust collaborators who weren’t but too costly. Now, Barker may have extra choices than ever. If he wished to rent a seasoned, name-brand cinematographer for Texas Chainsaw, he may, for instance.
However as he will get greater, he doesn’t really feel the necessity to rethink who his companions are; he appears to have already discovered his artistic soulmates, utilizing cinematographer Taylor Clemons for example when requested about having the sources to rent so-called greater names within the subject.
“Taylor is going to be a name in the space,” says Barker. “Taylor is a genius, and I actually think that he’s going to be one of the greats.”
Simply as Barker represents a brand new era of filmmakers who got here up on YouTube, the group he has assembled behind the scenes is subsequent gen as nicely. The oldest member on his UTA group is 35. His supervisor at Underground is in his early 30s. These are individuals who maybe have a special understanding of the enterprise than their extra established friends.
And, after all, he takes in recommendation from the elder statesmen of the horror style, like Blum and Lee, melding all of it collectively. Blum paraphrases a passage from Lena Dunham’s memoir to explain Barker’s method.
“Judd Apatow says to her, ‘You should listen to people a lot more,’ and Noah Baumbach says to her, ‘Don’t listen to anybody,’” Blum says with fun. “And the thing is, both are true. The challenge when you’re young is figuring out how much to do of each one. It’s really, really hard to do — and I think Curry has done that incredibly well.”
Lee set Barker up with Cregger, to speak over the issues he should navigate now that he’s turning into a reputation model director. The 2 bonded over screenwriting, and Cregger gave him some recommendation after studying Something However Ghosts: lower down the web page depend.
“Here’s me being stubborn because I was like, ‘No, I’m not gonna do that.’ It’s funny because looking back at it, I’m like, ‘Damn, Zach Cregger was right, because it was so stressful,’” Barker says with fun. (Cregger was fearful Barker was biting off greater than he may chew within the variety of days he needed to movie, nevertheless it all labored out.)
Barker re-iterates he’s cussed in the case of his imaginative and prescient, and his collaborators recall a number of Obsession moments he fought that others others doubted. However collaborators additionally recall folks throwing out concepts on set that he included into the film.
“You’re guiding the ship. You know what the voice of the movie is, you know what you’re chasing and you should know the story better than anyone else,” Barker says. “But any person can come up with a good idea and being open to that — I think it’s really important.”
Transferring ahead, he may see Obsession turning into some kind of anthology sequence, the place it’s a special want for each episode. And he may additionally see himself launching a horror banner, ala Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw.
However for now, he’s actually able to get into his bed room and edit Something However Ghosts. He says he has ADHD, and whereas for some creatives, which means multitasking, for him it manifests in turning into obsessive about one factor at a time. However he’s already scribbling out concepts for Texas Chainsaw, one thing he hopes will really feel like an authentic film moderately than merely an IP extension.
Says the filmmaker: “I like to create worlds that have an iconicness to it. I’m always thinking, ‘What’s the Halloween costume?’”
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Obsession is now taking part in in theaters. Take a look at all of The Hollywood Reporter‘s coverage here.
