Obsession Producer Files Lawsuit; “Scammed” Out Of Horror’s “Promised Profits”
An executive producer on the mega-successful, box-office smash horror film Obsession, directed by Curry Barker, has reportedly filed a lawsuit after she “rescued” the film from a poor edit but was “cut out” of its final profits. Leonora Ann Darby has been a producer at Tealight Productions for seven years, following experience as a director’s assistant and production runner for other companies, and is suing two other producers, James Harris and Mark Lane, who worked on Barker’s supernatural film and also co-founded Tealight Productions, in a lawsuit which was filed on Monday.
“This action arises from a seven-year pattern of unequal treatment and broken compensation promises by two older male film producers to a younger female producer whose labor was material to the growth of their company and who rescued their biggest film, the global hit Obsession,” a breach-of-contract document reads.
Darby has filed on the belief that Harris and Lane defaulted on a previous promise affirming the executive producer would receive her earned credits for working on Obsession as an equal and be given her fair share of the profits.
The former has allegedly been negated by the fact that Darby was credited as executive producer, clashing with her stance she as instead a leading one, while the latter has been invalidated by the key fact that Obsession has now become the tenth highest-grossing release of 2026, having grossed a global total of $505 million ($263 million in US sales and $242 million overseas) from a small budget of just $750,00. This places Barker’s second directed feature as one of horror’s most profitable contributions and is the fifth highest-grossing horror film ever made; fruits of labour of which Darby feels cut out.
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The producer was allegedly to “receive one-third (33.33%) of the net profits due to Tea Shop on films she lead-produced, together with direct participation in the applicable collection account management agreements.”
“Darby kept her side of that bargain. From 2019 through 2026, she progressed from development and production executive to one of Tea Shop’s three producers,” the filing adds. “She originated and developed projects, attached filmmakers, assembled financing, produced films from preproduction through delivery, supervised post-production, resolved legal and quality-control problems, built systems, managed vendors and staff, and repeatedly stepped into projects when Harris or Lane needed someone else to carry the work.”
The producer’s case also affirms she was tasked with saving the horror film in post-production from a bad cut by “calling for an edit to be retutned to Barker“, with additional details mentioning “notes on the opening relational set up between the lead male and female characters, the character arcs in the first two acts and her strong recommendation (which was adopted) to fully commit to the film‘s supernatural elements.”
Despite her input in “making the One Wish Willow a real element that functioned as intended in the real world of the film (with the iconic ‘money scene’ thus confirming this), critically resulted in a new pathway for the film,” Darby’s aforementioned colleagues “failed to honor their promises and instead treated Darby as their subordinate.”
The document also emphasises Darby’s stance that Lane and Harris “continually refused to properly compensate her, culminating in ruthlessly cutting Darby out of the overall net profits for the motion picture Obsession (other than a single initial payment), Tea Shop’s biggest hit and one of the most successful independent films of all time.”
The filing is seeking “equitable accounting and inquiry concerning Obsession, A Banquet, Banquet, Bull, The Wasp, The Cut, Into the Deep, Tornado, The Surfer, and any other project shown by the records to be subject to the pleaded agreements, followed by judgment for the balance found due.”
“Ms. Darby has brought serious and substantial claims, supported by a detailed factual record,“ Thomas K. Richards, working as Darby’s lawyer and a partner at Singh, Singh and Trauben, stated. “She is confident in her case and intends to pursue it fully.”
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