Netflix has made it official. The streamer dropped a teaser on Instagram with a caption that doubles as a dare to everyone who missed the phenomenon in theaters: “You wished for this.” Obsession arrives on Netflix in the United States on Tuesday, November 17, giving the year’s most improbable hit movie its biggest stage yet. The teaser needs nothing more than one of the film’s most talked-about scenes. Nikki, who duct-taped the door to keep Bear from leaving, stands alone after he slips out anyway. Her quiet “bye, Bear” hangs in the air, a music sting lands, and then there is only birdsong and quiet as the camera holds on her wide, unsettling smile and the words appear one at a time: obsession is coming to netflix november 17.
For anyone who somehow dodged the spoilers, Curry Barker’s horror film follows Bear, played by Michael Johnston, a lonely young man who breaks a mysterious toy called the One Wish Willow to make his crush Nikki, played by Inde Navarrette, fall for him. The wish works, and then it curdles into something monstrous. Made for just $750,000, the film opened in May and went on to gross nearly $500 million worldwide, powered almost entirely by word of mouth and by Navarrette’s ferocious breakout performance.
The Netflix date is the second act of the film’s streaming life. Obsession has been streaming on Peacock since July 17, and its move comes through Universal’s licensing deal with Netflix, which sends the studio’s theatrical releases to Peacock first, then to Netflix for an exclusive run before they eventually return to Peacock, as Men’s Journal outlines. Anyone who cannot wait until November has options tonight: the film is still on Peacock, and it is available to rent or buy on Prime Video, Apple TV and Fandango at Home.
There is a satisfying full circle to the landing spot. Before the film ever opened, Netflix tried to buy it outright and keep it out of theaters entirely, a near miss TDN covered in Netflix Almost Kept Obsession Out of Theaters. Focus Features bet on a theatrical run instead, the bet paid off to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars, and now the film arrives on Netflix anyway, this time carrying a phenomenon’s momentum with it.
The announcement lands in the middle of a huge weekend for Navarrette. At the Newport Beach Film Festival, where she was celebrated as one of Variety‘s 10 Actors to Watch, she called playing Rogue in Marvel’s forthcoming X-Men film an “honor” and “a beautiful project.”
Speaking with Marc Malkin on the festival carpet, Navarrette said she has not corresponded directly with Anna Paquin, who originated Rogue on screen, but feels “the correspondence started when I was younger, when I really fell in love with the X-Men movies in the first place.” The stunt training ahead does not scare her off either. She has “always wanted to take part in that sort of a thing,” she said, calling it “a really good excuse to get in the gym. I’m the laziest person, and I am very excited to get up and move my body.”
November 17 is a Tuesday, and the film’s page is the kind that tends to live at the top of the Netflix charts once the play button lights up. Set the date aside. This one earned the audience it is about to get.