NEW YORK (AP) — Days before “Obsession” opened in theaters, its 26-year-old director, Curry Barker, made a bet with his manager and agent. They said if the movie opened above $20 million, they would all get tattoos.
“Obsession” fell just short. It debuted with $17 million. They were still thrilled. Barker made the horror film with just $750,000. It was enormously successful. But then something unexpected happened. The following weekend, “Obsession” easily cleared $20 million. And then it did again and again and almost a fourth time — an almost unheard-of staying power.
“It was just like: Holy cow. I didn’t think that was an option,” Barker says. “Now we’ve said if it hits $300 million, we’ll all get the tattoo. We had to make a new milestone. And I think we’ll reach it.”
Over the last month, “Obsession” has sent shock waves through Hollywood. Barker’s microbudget thriller has grossed $286 million worldwide, and it’s still going. On its fifth weekend in theaters, it was second only to Steven Spielberg’s “Disclosure Day,” with $19 million. In North America, it has outgrossed “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu.” It’s the biggest hit in the 24-year existence of Focus Features, which has had to postpone the video-on-demand release. It ranks among the most profitable movies ever made.
Barker, who built a following making sketches and short films on YouTube, is living out the dream of every aspiring filmmaker. Life, he granted in a recent interview, is different now.
“My day to day is pretty much the same. It’s just that when I go out in public, it’s a lot different,” he says, laughing. “I actually feel a little unsafe sometimes.”
That’s an ironic development for someone whose twist on an old Monkey Paw story has frightened moviegoers. In “Obsession,” Bear Bailey (Michael Johnston) wishes on an antique toy called a One Wish Willow that his crush, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), loved him. The spell — loosely inspired by an old “Simpsons” Halloween episode — works disturbingly well.
The astonishing success of “Obsession” has been hotly debated throughout the industry. Coupled with the A24 hit “Backrooms,” by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, it’s been a coming-out party for YouTube as a breeding ground for the next generation of filmmakers.
It’s also brought waves of Gen Z moviegoers — who already make up a promisingly robust percentage of frequent ticket buyers — into theaters. Summer has historically been dominated by legacy franchises, but “Obsession” may represent a sea change.
“If there’s a lesson from ‘Obsession,’ I think it’s about audiences,” says Peter Kujawski, chairman of Focus Features. “We have a generation that grew up online, approaches culture with enormous curiosity and playfulness, and is far less concerned with where a filmmaker comes from than whether the story connects. They’re engaged, incredibly film-literate and eager to champion new voices and original stories.”
From YouTube to the multiplex
Barker, who grew up in Mobile, Alabama, before moving to Los Angeles at 18, says he feels as though he’s writing for his generation. The response to “Obsession,” he says, taps into a collective need.
“I get it because I think we’re a little tired of being at home. Our generation is the COVID generation,” says Barker. “I was fortunate enough to have all four years of high school experience. My brother, Riley, lost two years of that. We’re sick of the phones.”
Barker wanted to be an actor before he wanted to be a filmmaker. And while his early exposure to “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” at age 11, helped set him on a horror path, he didn’t begin that way.
“I was a huge Harry Potter fan growing up. Huge. I was obsessed,” Barker says, smiling. “I had all the wands. I would dress up.”
Barker attended film school in Los Angeles for a year, where he met Cooper Tomlinson, a co-star and producer on “Obsession.” The two soon forged their own path, though, on YouTube and TikTok. Their comedy sketch series, “That’s a Bad Idea,” found a footing online.
Barker wrote and directed the 2023 short “The Chair,” which attracted the interest of Tea Shop Productions. Producer James Harris approached Barker about a feature of “The Chair,” but he instead wanted to make a film — “Obsession” — that drew on many of the same ideas. Meanwhile, Barker also made an $800 found-footage horror film, “Milk & Serial.” After failing to secure distribution, he simply uploaded to YouTube. It went viral and landed him an agent.
“Obsession” was selected to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, giving it an enviable platform. After a bidding war, Kujawski and Focus acquired it for $15 million.
“What stands out about Curry is that he isn’t working from an inherited playbook,” says Kujawski. “Whether you look at his earlier work or ‘Obsession,’ there’s a consistency of vision and a confidence in his storytelling that immediately sets him apart. He knows exactly what he wants to say while being absolutely committed to making every minute of his work as entertaining as possible, and he’s willing to take real risks in service of that vision.”
More ‘Obsession,’ but other projects first
Barker’s swift but hard-earned rise has made him the poster boy for a new brand of filmmaker, one who has honed his craft as a digital creator and arrives with an established fan base. Jason Blum, the chief executive of Blumhouse Productions, has compared Barker and company to the 1970s wave of American auteurs, “making edgy movies that are connecting in theaters in a crazy way.”
“When you really step back, my journey is not really that different than Christopher Nolan or David Fincher or Steven Spielberg,” Barker says. “You can watch their early short films and see their work before they were given a chance. I think YouTube is just a path, a platform we can use now to show the industry what we’ve got.”
Now, Barker is one of the most in-demand filmmakers in Hollywood. He has already shot his next feature, “Anything But Ghosts,” starring Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard, for Blumhouse. Two months ago, A24 announced that he will write and direct a reboot of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
All the attention has taken some getting used to. Filmmakers like Ari Aster and Zach Cregger and even Spielberg have reached out to compliment Barker on his film.
“That’s when you start to feel this impostor syndrome of like: What? It’s not that good,” Barker says, laughing. “All I see when I watch ‘Obsession’ is the problems.”
An “Obsession” sequel is, naturally, a certainty. “A sequel isn’t hard for this movie,” grants Barker. He sketches out how new wishes by other characters on One Wish Willows could lead to entirely different stories, all revolving around some new vice: greed, fame, whatever.
But as much as it’s tempting to see “Obsession” as the product of Barker’s own wish, it’s more like the opposite. In the film, Bear’s profound mistake is putting off confessing his feelings to Nikki, thinking there’s plenty of time to do it. (The movie immediately cuts to a dead cat.) Barker, on the other hand, had no timidity about realizing his dreams. He wanted to make movies, so he did.
“Anyone that asks what advice you have for young filmmakers, I always say the same thing,” says Barker. “I went to a film school for a year out in L.A. and I watched people paralyze themselves with the pressure of: I’ve told people I’m a director so now I have to direct something that has to be good. If it’s not good, everyone’s going to judge me. The result of that thinking is two years on one short film.”
“You can’t put too much pressure on an idea,” adds Barker. “You just got to make it.”

Country singer Jelly Roll filed for divorce from his wife, Bunnie XO, according to Tennessee court records.
Jelly Roll, whose real name is Jason Deford, filed for divorce in Williamson County, Tennessee, on May 18.
It comes after nearly 10 years of marriage for the couple.
It was not immediately clear why Jelly Roll filed for divorce. He and Bunnie XO, whose real name is Alisa Deford, do not have any children together.
NBC News has reached out to attorneys for both Jelly Roll and Bunny XO.
Jelly Roll appeared to file just before he set out on his “Little Ass Shed Tour,” which began on May 28 and runs until July 22.
Earlier this year, the singer appeared to celebrate a decade with his wife in an Instagram post.
“2016 was a dream. And we’re still living it. 10 years with my beautiful wife, the one and only Mrs. Bunnie Xo,” Jelly Roll wrote in the January Instagram post, which featured a photo of the couple.
Posts on his account as recently as six weeks ago showed the couple together, and her account handle is still featured in his Instagram bio.
In February, Jelly Roll spoke to People about how he and Bunnie XO got through difficult times together.
“Love, man. Love will always do it,” he said at the time.

Olivia Rodrigo approached the production of her third album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, which came out on Friday, with a specific goal in mind: make “the ‘not’ purple album.” Simple enough! Step one: abandon the shade of lilac that almost identically adorned her first two album covers. (She essentially distilled the hue into sky blue and baby pink for so in love’s color palette, but I’ll give it to her. Mission accomplished!) Step two was tougher, and presented a challenge that’s been looming over the entire current class of mainstream artists: actually evolve in a climate that’s becoming virtually inhospitable for pop stars.
That assessment of the pop landscape might sound dramatic given that we heralded pop music’s triumphant return just two years ago. Early 2020s pop was dominated by Taylor Swift’s quarantine albums, which were virtually the only pop music to make waves during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and TikTok, which placed more value on songs (or snippets) than actual artists. But in 2024, there was a genuine wave of pop stars having capital-M Moments: Charli xcx had Brat Summer, Chappell Roan’s delayed surge was capped by the masterpiece anthem “Good Luck, Babe!,” and Sabrina Carpenter became pop’s reigning queen of innuendo via the inescapable “Espresso” and her blockbuster record Short n’ Sweet. These pop stars, each with a unique aesthetic and POV, put out music that earned real cultural cachet and critical praise.
Rodrigo wasn’t on an album cycle in 2024 and therefore wasn’t central to the pop resurgence rhetoric—though she arguably kicked off the party when her debut, Sour, launched her into the stratosphere in 2021. (The record spawned four top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, with two reaching the top spot.) Rodrigo came from the world of Disney television—like many a buzzy pop star before her—as a cast member of Bizaardvark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. But her lyricism was so adept and captivating right from the start that she straight up leapfrogged the transition phase from family-friendly fresh face to songwriting auteur.
In 2024, however, Rodrigo was on tour for her sophomore effort, 2023’s Guts (a run now more remembered as a launchpad for opening act Chappell Roan). Rodrigo’s second album was undeniably a success—its lead single, “vampire,” debuted at no. 1, and the record was one of the best-reviewed major releases of 2023. But from its continuation of Sour’s pop-punk-lite sound to its recycling of that darned purple, it was hard not to feel like there was something creatively stifled about the endeavor.
But regardless of Rodrigo’s involvement, 2024’s pop music renaissance was short-lived—though the fallout had little to do with music at all. While Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet follow-up, Man’s Best Friend, retread a lot of the tongue-in-cheek lyrics and retro-pop sound of its predecessor, it didn’t spawn anything with the staying power of “Espresso.” Carpenter’s biggest lightning-rod moment that cycle came when she was met with some chaste hand-wringing over the album’s depiction of sexuality and gender politics. The cover art in particular, which shows Carpenter on her hands and knees while a male figure pulls her hair, dominated the discourse about the record, especially over, you know, how Man’s Best Friend sounds. Chappell, meanwhile, was consistently hopping on Instagram to explain her progressive politics and her desire for a semblance of privacy—both of which you’d think would be seen as signs of a refreshingly down-to-earth pop star but instead received bizarrely condescending criticisms. (As for Charli? She shepherded Brat to a certain political campaign and is now flirting with abandoning the pop genre altogether.) From Madonna to Britney to Beyoncè, this kind of bad-faith backlash toward female pop stars isn’t new, but when the genre is more fractured than ever, it feels more tangibly effective in shortening the shelf life of stars who already have to fight for our attention.
Despite not releasing an album that year, Rodrigo wasn’t immune from the same kind of nonsense. Some of it predated her breakthrough—from the start, she was pitted against Carpenter because of an alleged love triangle involving the two of them and Rodrigo’s High School Musical costar Joshua Bassett. (This was largely stoked by Rodrigo’s debut single, “drivers license,” which many interpreted to be about Bassett.) Carpenter was also opening for Swift on the blockbuster Eras Tour in 2023. Swift initially held dual allegiances to Carpenter and Rodrigo (she’s clearly an influence to both artists, but especially Rodrigo: “TAYLOR SWIFT IS THE REASON I WRITE SONGS,” Rodrigo wrote on Instagram in 2021), but a songwriting dispute led to Rodrigo giving Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent retroactive credit on her Sour single “deja vu” due to its light similarities to Swiftie fan favorite “Cruel Summer.” Swift and Rodrigo have rarely interacted since, and a perceived feud between the two is relitigated whenever Rodrigo is back in the press. “I tried not to let it get to me or upset me,” Rodrigo said (after a deep sigh) on The New York Times’ Popcast last month when asked about Swift and about fans sleuthing out their supposed beef. “It was so long ago. I think there’s no use in harping on it. I just try to make songs that I love and try to be kind to other people and supportive of other people.”
Accomplishing the evolution that Rodrigo set out for didn’t just mean blocking out the tabloid noise, though—it also implicitly meant divorcing herself from that stifled artistry apparent on Guts and her reputation as a millennial nostalgia act. Bright, brash electric guitars on tracks like “good 4 u” and “brutal” immediately drew comparisons to and Avril Lavigne, and as a result, she attracted fans older than her own Gen Z demographic. When gang vocals and other pop-punk signifiers returned on Guts hits (i.e., “all-american bitch,” “get him back!”), it gave the appearance of doubling down—your mileage may vary on whether you interpret that album as a perfection of her craft or a retread of well-covered ground, but it didn’t offer anything particularly surprising.
Thus, Rodrigo intentionally distanced herself from guitars on the production of so in love: “I love rock music, and I have such a reverence for rock music, and that’s all that I really listen to,” she told Popcast. “But I think going into it, it didn’t feel exciting to me.” Lead single “drop dead” offered the first clue on what that shift meant: It’s a shimmering, sweeping chamber pop head rush that maintains the hush of intimacy while tackling soaring emotions. (That dichotomy is also evidenced by the Petra Collins–directed music video, which affords the bedroom in which one dreams about their crush all the grandeur of the Palace of Versailles by … filming at the Palace of Versailles.) The song was mostly met with acclaim, but its chart performance was a bit tepid—it debuted at no. 1 in early May but has already dropped out of the top 10. It also sparked yet another bizarre moral panic, this time over the perceived sexualization of Rodrigo’s baby-doll dresses, which got loud enough that she had to comment on it on Popcast: “I just think it just shows how we normalize pedophilia in our culture,” she said. “It’s just this rhetoric that we’re fed as girls since we’re so little, which is like, ‘Don’t wear that because then a man is going to sexualize your body, and it’s your fault.’”
It seemed like the music was in danger of being drowned out by the bullshit yet again, until so in love’s second single, “the cure,” really signaled the artistic leap Rodrigo was about to take. “The cure” is a darker, downtempo swerve from “drop dead”—the verses are delivered in a whispered sneer and contain some truly startling admissions. (“Used to play a game in my head when I’d date a guy / Tally up the girls that he fucked till I start to cry” goes one of the rawest bars.) It all explodes into a chorus that is thoughtful and cleverly written but also delivered with the primal gusto necessary to land its revelatory catharsis: “It feels like medication, and it’s good for me, I’m sure / But it don’t matter how your love feels anymore / It’ll never be the cure.” It doesn’t have the guitar riffs or the kiss-off sensibility that have become Rodrigo’s signature, but its stakes and intensity are enough to make it feel like one of her most thrilling songs to date, all while retaining her confessional flair.
That’s not to say Rodrigo isn’t still wearing her influences on her sleeve, but she’s certainly reaching beyond the millennial canon this time around. She’s cited new wave and post-punk acts like the Cure, New Order, Depeche Mode, and Siouxsie and the Banshees as influences, and those sounds are certainly present (literally in the case of Robert Smith, who is featured on the moody duet “what’s wrong with me” and has been championing her throughout this album cycle). And even though this is her third team-up with alt-pop maestro Dan Nigro—the most important active pop producer this side of Jack Antonoff—their partnership feels fresher than ever. They incorporate those ’80s synths and strings in service of Rodrigo’s decidedly modern, candid songwriting on a record she’s described as a “chronological” recount of a failed relationship from beginning to end. Take highlight “maggots for brains,” for instance, which pointedly uses brain rot as a stand-in for lovesickness, all over an “Age of Consent”–type bass line Or the kinetic “expectations,” on which she declares, “I won’t settle for a guy with a fake job / He seems so desperate for loving but, baby, I’m not” over Devo-esque buzzes and whirrs. From the soft romance of “u + me = <3” to the quietly orchestral “cigarette smoke,” Rodrigo and Nigro found a sonic palette conducive to Rodrigo’s increasingly complex coming-of-age while completing an evolution of her sound. (It also helps that these influences suit her voice much better than the pop-punk pastiche ever did.)
There are still some growing pains present—the Veronicas-indebted “my way” feels like a leftover from Sour or Guts, while the lullaby “honeybee” overplays its softness, a trap Rodrigo has fallen into on previous ballads. But so in love is still proof that it’s possible to progress the pop sound in an oddly oppressive modern pop landscape without losing the touch that separates a star in a crowded mainstream. Those clued into Rodrigo’s evolution will certainly appreciate the wink at the center of the record with the aptly titled “purple.” It’s a nod to her once-signature color, but Rodrigo pays tribute to it like she’s actually seeing it for the first time: “I melt with you / Your red with my blue / Now I see the world in purple.” It’s a sweetly romantic sentiment, but also an ode to blocking out the noise and finally experiencing the world in Technicolor. And like the rest of so in love, it’s still Olivia Rodrigo, but a little more vibrant.

Multidisciplinary artist Lex Marie has gone viral on TikTok and Instagram for her artwork confronting discipline within Black households.
At Lex Marie’s art studio, a belt is no longer just a belt.
I met the multidisciplinary artist in Washington, D.C., at the American University’s Katzen Arts Center.
She led me to her studio, where some belts are stretched across a canvas in meticulously organized rows and columns.
Others are used as a tool. Marie dips them in paint and swings them like a brush, leaving thick, violent marks across a white canvas.
Marie says each piece of work carries a story about childhood, discipline, survival and the complicated ways love can be expressed.
She is building a body of work that confronts a topic many families know well but rarely discuss openly: corporal punishment in Black households.
“I’m critiquing discipline in Black households specifically,” Marie says. “But I’m trying to tackle the history behind discipline in black households, behind spankings and whippings, and speak to the difference in how millennials are raising their children as well.”
The work is personal for her. Marie is 33 and the mother of an eight-year-old boy. As her son continues to grow, she says the questions that shape her art often come directly from her parenting.
“Through motherhood, I’m starting to think about my own childhood, and I’m comparing and contrasting it. So some of these works are just speaking from my experiences with spankings, and they’re also going from the perspective of how I feel.”
One of the larger works in the series is called “Watch Your Tone.” The six-by-six-foot piece is composed entirely of belts — dozens of them — arranged carefully across the canvas. They are an assortment of different shades of brown, black and pink to represent the color of flesh.
The title of the piece echoes a phrase many children hear growing up: “Watch your tone when talking to me.”
But Marie says the belts also represent something deeper.
She explains that she created this piece to convey multiple meanings. The different skin tones help her explain the different ways punishment is tied to American history.
For some historians and scholars, the conversation around corporal punishment in Black American households cannot be separated from the legacy of slavery. During enslavement, physical violence, such as being beaten with whips, was used to control Black bodies. Over generations, those discipline practices have evolved into modern parenting practices.
Yohuru Williams, founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, believes that the link between corporal punishment and African Americans is rooted in slavery.
“This idea of whipping, this idea that black bodies require extreme punishment — that there’s something about the constitution of blackness that requires excessiveness in terms of discipline — has deep roots. Roots that extend beyond slavery. But it [was] really reinforced by the enslavement of Africans. And then once they come to the United States, you have this adoption of punishment systems within slavery that continue after slavery; that continue that process with that practice of brutalization of … black and brown bodies,” he said.
“Because I Love You, another piece in Marie’s series, highlights the physical act of enforcing punishment.
Marie painted a wooden panel white, dipped a belt in acrylic paint and struck the surface again and again, leaving marks scattered across the piece like scars and welts.
“I spent hours just kind of beating the same thing over and over,” she said.
The process left her physically sore the next day.
The piece’s title comes from a phrase many children hear after a whipping: “This hurts me more than it hurts you” or “I’m doing this because I love you.”
Marie explains how making this work has been cathartic and difficult. When the videos of her art began circulating online, the reactions were immediate.
Thousands of people commented on her post, sharing their own childhood stories. Some were painful and defensive, while others were grateful the topic was being discussed.
But Marie stands firm that the goal of this work isn’t to accuse or shame. It creates space for a conversation that is often buried.
Williams says that in order to have these discussions, Black families have to reimagine how they think about discipline.
“I think a lot of parents — black parents — struggle with this because there is this inherent knowledge that this is the way that we came up. And there is this belief that, well, you know, … maybe we’re more stable, maybe we’re more durable, maybe we’ve been able to endure more. We’ve developed a particular type of grip because of this experience,” Williams said.
Williams says it’s time to have an “honest” conversation about the historical legacy of corporal punishment within the Black community. “That would be far more communal and affirmative of human dignity and the dignity of black life,” he said. “Coming out of the Black Lives Matter movement, you kind of look back at this, and you go, ‘We understand it from a historical standpoint.’ But from a humanistic and community-centered, restorative justice practices standpoint, there’s something that just doesn’t sit right with me about this practice. And I think we owe it to ourselves as a community to revisit that.”
Marie sees her art as a pathway to discuss extremely difficult and triggering conversations about childhood trauma, especially for people who might struggle to find the words themselves — just like her.
The project will continue to grow over the next year as Marie develops more pieces for a planned exhibition this fall. The series has nearly 20 pieces, and she has even sold two to filmmaker Spike Lee, who is known for his films Do the Right Thing and Malcolm
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Lex Marie has a solo show at The Bishop gallery in Brooklyn, New York this fall which will feature this series.
For Marie, the most important outcome isn’t agreement. It’s recognition.
This story was edited by Olivia Hampton and produced by Nia Dumas. The digital story was written by Nia Dumas.

Chris Tucker says he’s been celibate for more than three years and is holding out for marriage … a revelation he shared during a comedy set in Las Vegas … TMZ has learned.
The ‘Rush Hour’ star made the comments during a performance at The Wynn on Friday, where guests were required to lock up their phones before entering.
Sources who attended the show tell TMZ … Tucker opened up about his love life, telling the crowd, “Well, I’m celibate. I’ve been celibate for 3 years, but I’m really trying to get married. I give it to the love this time.”
We’re told Tucker added, “I’m serious. No one believes me.”
The comedian said even members of his own family aren’t convinced, including his niece, adding, “She believes in aliens, but she don’t believe I did that.”
Tucker also detailed the reactions he’s gotten from women after revealing he’s not having sex.
We’re told he joked, “She said, ‘How much? How much … how much is it?’ I’m not selling it. I’m celibate! What is wrong with you people?”
Tucker also joked about trying to flirt with Siri and Alexa because he’s gotten lonely, drawing some of the night’s biggest laughs from the crowd.