It’s not every day you see a movie actually gain box office steam in the weeks after it first hits theaters, but that’s just the magic trick Obsession pulled off in its second week. Not only did the highly praised horror earn above its initial estimates during its opening weekend, landing a solid $17 million, but word of mouth pushed it to a staggering 39% gain in ticket sales over the following Memorial Day holiday, earning the film another $30 million over the long weekend. Then, Obsession outdid itself again, gaining an additional 10% in its third weekend, making it Focus Features’ highest-grossing film in the company’s history. The feat of gaining traction for three weekends in a row outside of the holidays is such an anomaly, the last movie to pull that off was E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, but it also speaks to the importance of extending theatrical windows so that movies like Obsession have a chance to find their audiences.
Theatrical windows—how long studios will keep movies playing on the big screen before moving them to the next stage of their distribution cycle, like home rental—have been a point of contention since the COVID-19 pandemic truncated windows for wide releases before those films moved to streaming and PVOD platforms. As calls for reestablishing longer theatrical windows from exhibitors have grown louder, studios like Universal—the parent company of Focus Features, which released Obsession—have started to reverse course. This year, Universal is extending its releases’ theatrical windows to six weeks; in 2027, it’ll grow to seven. This gives theaters exclusivity (and precedence) over streaming weeks, and almost months later, as it used to be. Disney is the current frontrunner of keeping its theatrical window open the longest, typically about 60 days, but before the pandemic, the norm was traditionally a 90-day theatrical window.
The issue of theatrical windows boiled up during the ultimately moot debate around whether or not Netflix would make a good steward of Warner Bros. While Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos insisted he would honor Warner Bros.’ 45-day window, some worried the rush to streaming might hurt the long-term profitability of movies and damage their ability to recoup profits. After Paramount Skydance became the victor of the merger—which is still in a holding pattern—David Ellison claimed that Paramount would adopt Warner Bros.’ 45-day window and continue to honor it should the merger go through.
Industry-wide, this change back towards theaters is small but growing. The head of Cinema United, Michael O’Leary, said at Cinema Con that the average theatrical window for the top 100 films increased by three days from the previous year, up to 37 days. More time playing in theaters means more audiences have more chances to watch a movie on the big screen thanks to word-of-mouth, good reviews, or savvy marketing—none of which is all that helpful if a movie is shuffled off screens too quickly.
What makes Obsession such a fascinating case study is that movies opening in a wide release typically tend to start strong and then decrease in box office earnings the longer they’re in theaters. Obsession defied those expectations, and now the usual plan of pushing movies quickly to PVOD platforms is on pause for the surprise juggernaut to cash in on the surge of momentum. YouTuber-turned-filmmaker Curry Barker tapped into a creepy relationship dynamic that sent audiences shrieking and kept them talking about it after, and with a well-timed holiday, moviegoers had the time and curiosity to see what the fuss was all about. Jason Blum, one of the film’s producers and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, told Variety that he is a “big believer in a long, consistent theatrical window,” and is holding off on a definitive VOD date for Obsession, allowing audiences the chance to enjoy the film plunged in the dark, hopefully avoiding their phones for the runtime.
The longer a movie is in theaters, the longer an audience has to discover it. The longer a movie takes to go to streaming, the longer before it’s losing audiences to whatever an algorithm “thinks” a viewer might want to watch. With the box office still trailing behind its pre-pandemic figures, every new Obsession and Barbenheimer Summer is a boon. If studios need more examples, Obsession wasn’t the only movie that benefited from the long weekend and good reviews. While The Mandalorian And Grogu is following a more traditional release trajectory, a strong start before trending steadily down, the winningly weird Sheep Detectives also added a 5% increase over its haul over Memorial Day weekend and, coming hot on the heels of Obsession, A24’s internet-born Backrooms far surpassed initial estimates. Good word of mouth can help movies in a busy world competing for our attention, but only if there’s enough time for that word to get around.
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