Nikki (Inde Navarrette) smiling in ‘Obsession’Focus Features /Courtesy Everett Collection
Universal certainly earned flak for its controversial decision to debut certain movies on the PVOD market after 17 days, impacting films such as Halloween Ends, The Holdovers, and Knock at the Cabin. This decision was made around the same time as Warner Bros.’ equally controversial move to release every movie on its 2021 slate day-and-date on the HBO Max streaming platform. Universal argued that a given movie would have already generated the majority of its potential box-office revenue within 17 days, especially if it debuted below a certain threshold. Universal has since made major changes to its windowing strategy, having committed to a minimum of four weekends in theaters this year and a five-weekend theatrical run in 2027.
The studio’s biggest recent hit is reaping the benefits of this new strategy, having been officially removed from Universal’s digital release calendar and given an extended theatrical run. Obsession, director Curry Barker‘s pop culture phenomenon about consent, was reportedly expected to debut on the PVOD market on June 2. But after three massive weekends that produced unprecedented weekend-to-weekend box-office gains, the movie will remain in theaters for a while longer. Obsession was picked up by Universal subsidiary Focus Features for a reported $15 million at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The movie has since grossed around 140 times its reported budget of $750,000, and is effectively guaranteed to become the most successful hit of all time by return-on-investment.
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
Here’s When You Can Expect ‘Obsession’ to Hit the Home Video Market
Obsession has grossed more than $100 million domestically over the course of 17 days and is currently projected to conclude its worldwide run with around $330 million. This is much higher than the lifetime global hauls of its spiritual predecessors in the horror genre — Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project. The first movie of 2026 to benefit from Universal’s extended theatrical window was the Colleen Hoover adaptation Reminders of Him. Other titles that have, or will benefit from this new strategy are The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, Minions & Monsters, and Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day. Nolan, of course, was always going to get an unusually long theatrical window given that he spells such things out in his contract. Obsession‘s success may now give Barker leverage to make similar demands of the many studios that are reportedly courting him.
Under the four-to-five weekend strategy, Obsession remains exclusive to theaters until about mid‑June. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
