Priyanka Chopra praises Obsession for shift in Hollywood
Priyanka Chopra has urged creators to take note and embrace the notion that "ideas are your currency".
Priyanka Chopra thinks Obsession is proof of a real shift in Hollywood.
The 43-year-old actress and producer pointed to Curry Barker's low budget hit horror flick as a perfect example of how it can be easier than ever for filmmakers and actors to break into the industry.
Speaking at the Cannes Lions conference on Wednesday (24.06.26), she said: "I feel like if you have an idea, shoot it, put it on YouTube, and it can become Obsession, the movie that just came out.
“What a wonderful time to be an entertainer, to be in the entertainment business, because ideas are your currency.”
Chopra, who has made the move from Bollywood to Hollywood over the last decade, noted that she had a very different experience.
She explained: "My parents were doctors, so none of us had any idea how to navigate film.
"It used to be such a niche industry when I first started. If you wanted to get into filmmaking, you had to figure out what department you wanted to be in."
Meanwhile, Chopra had also been told early in her career that Indiana cinema as a whole wouldn't get to be "as global as Hollywood" because of the language barrier.
Now, she is using her work as a producer to help others get their start.
She added that she wants to support "new filmmakers, or filmmakers who have great ideas but don’t have the ability to open doors that I may be able to open".
Her references to Obsession and the changing nature of Hollywood come after the horror movie became one of 2026's unlikely box office hits.
The film was made by YouTuber Barker, 26, for just $750,000, and it grossed $334 million and counting over its first 39 days.
Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons, has also been a huge success, pulling in $301.8m on a $10m budget.
Horror pioneer Jason Blum has also praised the work of the two young content creators.
Speaking recently at the Produced by Conference on the Universal Lot in Los Angeles, he said: “They’re made by non-traditional directors, directors who really honed their skills as creators online. Their hope and desire and dream is to make cool movies. Backrooms and Obsession are edgy and weird and f******nuts.
"And to me, there’s almost this feeling of the ’70s, of a new generation of young people making edgy movies that are connecting in theaters in a crazy way.
"So many young people grew up in a time when they couldn’t go to the movies, and they haven’t had something made for them that gets them off their iPad and into theatres. Suddenly they have two movies.”
