‘Obsession’ is Driving Location Tourism to Little Toni’s, The Green Man

It’s Sunday at 5 p.m., and the wait list at Little Toni’s in North Hollywood is already one hour and getting longer by the minute. Families, friend groups and couples are huddled in clusters, scrolling on phones or taking pictures of the Italian restaurant’s red signage that boasts a history dating to 1956.

They’ve all descended upon the triangle lot where Lankershim Boulevard meets Vineland Avenue for the same reason. Well, everyone except a 60-ish woman, Trisha, and her husband, who have been Little Toni’s regulars for 30 years and have no clue why their beloved haunt is so crowded on what appears to be an average Sunday.

“The food is good, but we were sitting here wondering, ‘Dang, what’s going on here?’ ” explains Trisha, who learned in real time that her favorite NoHo restaurant is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in the San Fernando Valley after being featured in Curry Barker’s Obsession, a horror movie that shocked Hollywood — in a good way — by raking in nearly $300 million globally off a $750,000 budget, making it the most successful release in Focus Features’ history.

“Is there anyone famous in it?” Trisha asks, shocked to hear the answer was no. “So, is everyone here to celebrate the movie or something?”

Basically. Ever since its May 15 release, Obsession fans have been flocking to two L.A. locations prominently featured in the film: Little Toni’s and a metaphysical shop called The Green Man in Burbank. Within days of the film catching fire at the box office, lines started forming at both businesses, thanks to posts on Reddit and, now, viral clips on Instagram and TikTok. (Locations used for a music store and bar — Cassell’s Music and Roguelike Tavern — have since closed.)

“It’s been like this since the movie came out,” a Little Toni’s staffer says when THR turns up at the host stand. She was barely able to catch her breath between answering the phone and taking names. “It’s been both a blessing and a curse, if you ask me.”

That pretty much summarizes the film’s plot. Written and directed by Barker, Obsession centers on a music store employee named Bear (Michael Johnston), a hopeless romantic who has fallen for a co-worker named Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Desperate to win her over, Bear buys a novelty item called a One Wish Willow at The Green Man. After dropping her off at home, Bear breaks the object in half and wishes upon it for her to love him more than anyone in the entire world. It’s a classic monkey’s paw plot: The wish works, but his romantic fantasy turns into a violent nightmare.

On the couple’s first real date, Bear takes Nikki to dinner at Little Toni’s. The date goes off the rails in spine-tingling fashion as Nikki objects to Bear’s line of questioning and causes a scene by rising from their booth, shouting “no” over and over again. “I thought we were having a nice date,” she cries. That booth is now the most sought-after spot in Little Toni’s, with diners waiting as long as it takes to snag the seat. “They were so great to us for the day we filmed there,” posted actor Cooper Tomlinson, who plays Bear’s best friend Ian. “Fun fact: It was the last day of filming.”

Another fun fact: Little Toni’s is less than two miles, or a seven-minute drive from The Green Man, so many movie fans are making it a double feature by stopping in one after the other. That included Fik, 32, who convinced a buddy, Eugene, 24, not only to see the film but make the trek from south of Torrance. While waiting for a table, Fik explained his affections for the film. “I saw it the night after it premiered and loved it,” he said, adding that he’s now seen it twice. “Then one day I was scrolling Instagram and found out that the locations in the movie are actually here. I went over to The Green Man to buy a One Wish Willow but they were out of stock. Then because the restaurant is here, too, I was, like, I got to come down and check it out.”

Location tourism is nothing new in Los Angeles, where tourists and locals alike have long flocked to high-profile destinations like Musso & Frank (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, as well as a callout in the Taylor Swift song “Elizabeth Taylor”), The Formosa Café (L.A. Confidential), Venice High School (Grease), Randy’s Donuts (Iron Man 2) and the Pasadena houses in Halloween and Back to the Future. But amid a production downturn in Los Angeles that has devastated the industry, the boom in visitors for the two Obsession locations is a bright spot in a dark time.

Fik said it’s the first time he’s ever visited a filming location because that’s how obsessed he’s become with Barker’s box office phenomenon. While waiting for their table, they had some extra time to debate what their respective wishes would be. “I wish I was the luckiest person at all times,” Fik explained. “But then one of my friends said, ‘What if you’re the luckiest person in a plane crash?’ It changes how you look at it.”

Maya, a 17-year-old Obsession fan, convinced her family of five (plus her brother’s girlfriend) to take an hour-and-15-minute road trip from their home in Palmdale to North Hollywood for a Sunday night meal. “I really liked the movie and saw a TikTok about [Little Toni’s] that showed the food and, to be honest, the cannolis looked really good,” says Maya. “I showed my dad the TikTok, and once he saw the pizza, he said, ‘OK, let’s go.’ ” (Before Obsession, Little Toni’s pizza was its claim to fame after being cited by both the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine as the best in the San Fernando Valley.)

Among the crowd were good friends Axel and Daniel, both 21, who drove from South Orange County because they loved the movie — “a 10 out of 10,” praised the former — and sisters Christian, 33, and Haley, 25, from Inglewood. “We’re always down to come out and try new places to eat, especially an Italian restaurant,” Christian explained. “We’re going to order the spaghetti and ravioli but the pizza looks good as well.” Bobby, 40, arrived with a good friend, Julie, 33, after having checked out The Green Man first. “The fact that this small-budgeted film has been able to have such a huge impact in Hollywood is amazing,” Bobby explains. “Any time you see something go viral like that, you obviously want to kind of see what the buzz is about.”

The Green Man store manager Linda Snovak is embracing the newfound notoriety. The film’s popularity has tripled business for the mystical shop and apothecary, which offers a wide range of services including magical advice, custom spell crafting, psychic readings, healing sessions, classes, clergy services, drum circles and vision quests. When THR stopped by the same Sunday afternoon, it was filled with Obsession fans, most of whom were chasing down One Wish Willows.

But no such luck. “We had the final batch for sale on Friday, and there was a line around the corner by the time we opened,” Snovak says of a shipment sent over by Focus. “That is not something we’ve seen since our grand opening” in 2023.

Focus Features had its own limited inventory that sold out in 12 hours when batches hit the distributor’s dedicated online store. Buyers were limited to purchasing three at a time at $6.99 each, and Focus stocked the site twice, first on April 15 and again on May 12. Though a specific number is not available, it is estimated that there are several thousand in circulation. More restocks are possible, but nothing official has been confirmed.

Snovak says she doesn’t expect One Wish Willows to be back in stock any time soon, but in the meantime, fans are buying other Green Man offerings featured in the film, like citrine necklaces (which Bear almost buys for Nikki) and tigereye stones (which Nikki buys for Bear). “People are buying a lot of little trinkets like keys, candles, spell kits, conjure oils and other items,” Snovak adds. “We also have a display case exactly like the one featured in the movie, with a One Wish Willow and the necklace, that will be a permanent feature for people to take photos and videos with.”

The only downside has been a bot attack on The Green Man’s website, which had already been overwhelmed with interest. “The website traffic is crazy, and we had to expand our server to allow for the extra flow. One IP address got hit 58,000 times in five hours, and that led to a bot attack that took our website down,” Snovak explains. “We switched servers and are in a better place now to manage the interest.”

And they’re using the spotlight to welcome “new friends” into the community while also educating them on the power and the peril of magic — offscreen.

“We always warn people when they try to do love magic like what’s featured in the film. Don’t name somebody directly because that usurps their free will. We don’t do that. It’s against store policy and our ethics and codes,” advises Snovak. “If you really want somebody to love you, and you try to force them with magic, you will end up with an undesired result, like an obsession.”

This story appeared in the June 16 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.