Move over, Fahrenheit 9/11, there’s a new successor in town. Obsession, which came to Focus Films out of the Toronto Film Festival, is now the highest-grossing acquisition of all time, as entertainment attorney at Blake & Wang P.A, Brandon Blake is here to share.
Breaking Box Office Records
With a very respectable gross of $225.5M globally, Obsession has a slew of records under its belt, and now it can add another. That’s pretty impressive for a title that cost about $15M for them to acquire, beating out Neon and A24 in a 24-hour deal-making bout. While the film had a strong festival response at the time, few could have foreseen it grabbing the box office traction that it has. It’s also performed stronger and stronger each week, something we see only rarely, with only a 7% decline in the fourth week.
A Hidden Festival Gem
Incidentally, the film has also toppled the 2019 release of Downton Abbey to take the title of Focus Films’ top-grossing movie to date. It’s certainly a worthy successor to Fahrenheit 9/11, which first premiered at Cannes in 2004 and took home the Palme d’Or that year. Although the title was initially destined for Miramax, Disney did not want to release the film due to some controversies around its subject matter, and the Weinstein brothers eventually purchased the movie for release in partnership with Lionsgate and IFC. It stood as Lionsgate’s top movie until The Hunger Games toppled it.
It’s always great to see festival titles break out into true mainstream success, rather than remaining awards darlings with little traction or awareness from the general public. With more to come still from Obsession’s box office run, let’s hope to see even more success for Focus Films in the months to come.
Film and Television 