Curry Barker Says Netflix Wanted Straight-to-Streaming for ‘Obsession’ Before Focus Won the Bidding War

A year after “Obsession” became one of the biggest horror success stories in recent memory, Curry Barker is still spilling details about how it all came together. The two big ones: Netflix wanted to skip theaters entirely, and Barker came very close to making a feature version of his viral short “The Chair” instead.

Barker sat down with Tom Power on CBC’s “Q,” and recalled waking up the morning after the film’s TIFF premiere to missed calls from his manager, agent, and financier. A bidding war had broken out. According to Barker, pretty much everyone wanted in, with Neon, Focus, and A24 among the suitors.

Netflix was in the mix too, but its pitch was different. “They put in an offer to just put it straight on Netflix,” Barker said.

Thank God that didn’t happen. Focus Features ended up buying the film for around $15M, a staggering number for a movie Barker says cost roughly $600K to $700K to make. The theatrical bet paid off big time: “Obsession” turned into a genuine word-of-mouth phenomenon, even jumping 39% in its second weekend at the domestic box office. You almost never see that anymore. Would it have become the cultural moment it did if it had just been dumped onto Netflix? I highly doubt it.

Remember, Greta Gerwig threatened to walk off “Narnia” unless it played in theaters. Emerald Fennell rejected a richer Netflix bid for “Wuthering Heights” to preserve a proper rollout. The Duffer Brothers left Netflix for Paramount for the same reason. And Rian Johnson? He practically begged, and then heatedly fought, for a wide release of “Glass Onion,” only to be given a glorified one-week showcase. Not to mention Olivia Wilde admitting that Netflix offered millions more than A24 to acquire “The Invite,” but with a less robust theatrical rollout. It has since become an Oscar contender for A24.

The bigger question is: how long can Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos hold this line? Sure, Netflix’s subscriber numbers are the envy of the industry, but the no-theatrical rule is starting to feel like a hill he doesn’t want to die on. Netflix has recently scheduled “La Bola Negra” and “Narnia” for robust 47-day theatrical rollouts.

Regardless, things have moved fast for Barker since. He’s got “Anything But Ghosts,” another original horror project at Universal and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster that he says leans more comedic, plus his involvement with “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”