It’s going to be another Curry Barker summer. Focus Features has dated the next film from the “Obsession” director, titled “Anything But Ghosts,” to open in theaters May 7, 2027, kicking off the summer with another film that hopes to make audiences obsessed.
Barker and co-writer Cooper Tomlinson announced the dating news on social media, along with the reminder that tickets are not available for sale just yet. Whoops.
Barker is actually starring in this one along with his longtime collaborator and “Obsession” star Tomlinson, and it also features a cast that includes Violet McGraw, Chris Reinacher, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Aaron Paul.
Barker will direct the film, which he co-wrote with Tomlinson. The pair will star as part of a group of fame-seeking wannabe “ghosthunters” who find themselves in over their heads, with things spiraling wildly and terrifyingly out of control.
After “Obsession” blew up Toronto in 2025, Blumhouse Atomic Monster quickly made a deal for this project from Barker, and he’s not wasting any time in getting it to audiences while “Obsession” is still heating up ahead of awards season. The film is produced by Roy Lee and Steven Schneider for Spooky Pictures as well as Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath for Divide/Conquer and Jason Blum for Blumhouse. The film’s executive producers are Barker, Tomlinson, Daniel Bekerman, and Image Nation’s Ben Ross.
“Obsession” (along with “Backrooms”) has been the industry story of the summer at the box office. The film surpassed $500 million globally after being produced for just $750,000 and was acquired by Focus for $15 million out of TIFF.
Coming from Barker, who cut his teeth with videos and sketches on YouTube, it’s the type of movie and storyteller that Hollywood has largely ignored, and the film’s success has everyone chasing the next Barker and the next internet IP that can surprise.
Right now, “Anything But Ghosts” opens the same weekend as Mel Gibson’s “The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One” via Lionsgate, the follow-up to “The Passion of the Christ.” That was the indie film that previously broke a ton of box office records, and “Obsession” is a completely different type of story and movie carving out a new audience in theaters.
Focus still to come this year has “Werwulf” from Robert Eggers opening this Christmas, the Jane Austen adaptation “Sense and Sensibility,” the biopic drama “Elsinore” starring Andrew Scott, and next year has “The Bell Jar” from director Sarah Polley starring Billie Eilish.
