The YouTube-to-prestige-horror pipeline is looking very strong this weekend.
Taking the number one spot at the box office is “Backrooms,” a feature film expansion of Kane Parsons’ series of YouTube videos featuring eerie found footage of a mysterious office space (drawn from a 4chan thread) that defies physics.
Directed by Parsons, “Backrooms” will bring in an estimated $81 million at the domestic box office this weekend alone. That’s the biggest opening by far for indie studio A24 — the previous record was held by “Civil War,” which made $25.7 in its first weekend of release.
The number two film, “Obsession,” is pulling off something that’s arguably even more impressive. True, its estimated weekend total is a mere $26.4 million — but the movie (about a romantic wish gone nightmarishly wrong) already made more money in its second weekend than its first, and now its third weekend is set to grow another 10 percent.
For context, most wide release films normally fall between 50 to 70 percent in their second weekend; last year’s “Sinners” was considered an extraordinary word-of-mouth success because it fell less than 5 percent. Outside of Christmas releases (which have more staying power, thanks to the holidays), growing from weekend to weekend is unheard of — according to the Hollywood Reporter, “Obsession” is the first film since 1982 to grow on both its second and third weekends.
And like “Backrooms,” “Obsession” is a horror movie directed by someone who first made his name on YouTube — Curry Barker, whose YouTube filmmaking culminated (for now) in the hourlong found footage horror film “Milk & Serial” released in 2024. Barker has already shot his next film and is set to direct a new remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
The two releases follow the surprise success of “Iron Lung,” a video game adaptation released earlier this year. Directed by Mark Fischbach — better known under his YouTube account name Markiplier — “Iron Lung” grossed nearly $41 million domestically.
In a New York Times article about the recent “YouTube-to-filmmaker boomlet,” Rutgers Cinema general manager Mark DelVecchio noted that “lots of YouTubers have tried to make the leap to mainstream movies and come up short.” What sets Parsons, Barker, and Fischbach apart? DelVecchio said that despite their youth (Parsons is 20, Barker is 26), they all have “longevity.”
“At this point, some of them have been making videos for a very long time, and that’s how you develop a loyal audience that will follow you,” he added.
Both films came in ahead of the first Star Wars film in seven years, “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which is on-track to gross $24 million this weekend.
By the way, while I haven’t seen “Backrooms” yet (fingers crossed for tomorrow), I have seen “Obsession.” So I can confirm that it absolutely does not disappoint — I watched most of the second half with my fingers over my eyes, and I may even have screamed a few times.
This post was first published on May 30. It has been updated with current box office numbers.
