5 Reasons Why Backrooms Ruled The Box Office

When the summer 2026 movie season was taking shape on the calendar, there were many reasons to be optimistic about it. From the return of "Star Wars" to the big screen with "The Mandalorian and Grogu" to Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," there were tons of big films that poised to become hits. Yet, here we are, looking at the numbers for "Backrooms" with our jaws on the floor. Nobody could have predicted this.

Released by A24 and directed by the 20-year-old Kane Parsons, "Backrooms" opened to an absolutely astounding $81.4 million domestically over the weekend. It also pulled in $36.5 million overseas in its debut, giving it a $118 million global start. Not bad for a movie that started as a creepypasta that Parsons then turned into a series of viral YouTube shorts.

Just how impressive is this opening? It's the biggest debut ever for an original horror movie, for starters. "Backrooms" was already positioned to become the biggest surprise of the summer when I wrote my box office preview for the movie less than two weeks ago. At that time, it was expected to make closer to $30 million (which still would have been amazing, mind you). From there, projections just went up and up until we arrived here in uncharted territory.

Between "Backrooms" and "Obsession," this was one of the most important weekends in box office history. YouTubers have fully infiltrated Hollywood, and they're making more money than Disney's latest "Star Wars" movie. It's impossible to ignore, and now, Kane Parsons has earned his place atop the global charts.

What went right here? How did A24 bet on this young YouTuber and win so handily? We're going to look at the biggest reasons why "Backrooms" ruled the box office on its opening weekend. Let's get into it.

Credit where credit is due: A24 saw the potential in this movie. "The Backrooms" traces its origins and history to various forums online, with a popular creepypasta emerging. Kane Parsons then crafted what became the definitive version of that mythology thanks to his viral series of YouTube shorts based on said creepypasta. It's a unique thing in that way.

A24 didn't question silly things like, "Can't someone else just make their own version of this?" Or, "Should we really let a 20-year-old direct this movie?" Instead, they saw something that was remarkably popular online and entrusted the person who made it what it was to bring it to the big screen. Young though he may be, Parsons is the key to all of this.

So much of what's happening here runs in defiance of traditional Hollywood logic. All the same, the brass at the studio understood that they had a unique opportunity to capitalize on an emerging potential franchise. Nobody could have possibly predicted that it was going to go as well as it went, but A24, at the very least, understood that there was a lot of potential in the idea. The studio leaned into it and leaned into it hard. All involved have been rewarded greatly for doing so.

In keeping with the theme, A24 was smart when it came to making "Backrooms," in that it didn't over-spend. Playing Monday morning quarterback, it's easy to look back and say the studio could have spent much, much more on this movie, and it would have been fine. The audience was there! They were going to show up! But that sort of thinking can doom even the most surefire thing on paper.

Rather, A24 gave Kane Parsons a reasonable-but-not-huge $10 million budget to work with. That was enough to convincingly bring his vision to life. In doing so, the studio mitigated a lot of risk. At worst, this film would have been a swing and a relatively inexpensive miss. If it worked, A24 would have a new horror property on its hands with near-limitless potential. Make no mistake, "Backrooms" has now secured its future as a franchise; it's just a matter of how quickly A24 and Parsons will pounce.

In recent years, inflated budgets have been a real problem for Hollywood, particularly when it comes to franchise filmmaking. Even horror movies have suffered. "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple" flopped at the box office earlier in 2026 in no small part because it had a pretty big budget (for a horror film anyway) north of $60 million. A big reason why horror often works is that it can be made cheaply, and, therefore, the bar for success is lowered.

In this case, A24 didn't raise the bar for success higher than it needed to, making things unnecessarily difficult or adding unnecessary pressure. As a result, the windfall from this success will be much, much greater.

It's absolutely no secret that horror has had a reliable run at the box office over the last handful of years. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, it's easily been the most consistent genre. That's not to say the genre doesn't have its flops — of course it does. But horror is arguably as strong as it's ever been. That's a big reason why "Backrooms" and "Obsession" towered over Disney's expensive new "Star Wars" movie this past weekend.

"Backrooms" and its wild success is just the latest victory lap for the genre in a series of victory laps. "Five Nights at Freddy's 2" defied expectations at the box office last year, earning more than most analysts expected. Both "Sinners" and "Weapons" were likewise among the most acclaimed movies of 2025, on top of being huge hits that went on to find Oscar glory.

Similarly, "The Conjuring: Last Rites" broke huge box office records in 2025 en route to just shy of $500 million worldwide. The list goes on (and on and on). So, nobody should be saying "horror is back" or anything like that, but this is a high-profile example of what horror is capable of right now. These movies no longer have a lowered ceiling. Under the right circumstances, the right horror film can make more money than most superhero movies are making at the moment. That would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.

Things will change. Things do change. There are ebbs and flows in the industry. That's the nature of the beast. Right now, though, horror is having a major moment. "Backrooms" is just the latest entry in the genre to steal the spotlight.

It really can't be overstated how much it is, in retrospect, a little shocking that Kane Parsons got to direct "Backrooms." He is the exact kind of filmmaker that Hollywood ran the risk of disregarding. It seemed far more likely that A24 (or some other studio) would wave a bag of money at him for the rights to what he created on YouTube, then hand the idea to another, proven filmmaker.

Instead, Parsons got to execute his vision for "Backrooms" with the support of some great filmmakers, such as James Wan ("Saw," "The Conjuring") and Oz Perkins ("Longlegs," "The Monkey"), who were among the movie's producers. I won't even engage with the rumor that Perkins or someone else ghost-directed the film for Parsons as that feels beyond disrespectful. Did he do this alone? Of course not. No movie is made by one person, really. But Parsons was the chief creative.

The future of horror filmmaking is YouTube (with a major caveat). Parsons is now leading that charge. Credit to all involved for trusting someone this young artist with no previous feature credits to get the job done. But what we've seen is great things can happen if the system supports young filmmakers. It resulted in a movie that the younger generation rallied behind, largely because it was made by one of their own and based on something they care about — not something the older generations want them to care about. 

Parsons was truly connected to the material and the people who enjoyed the material. In his hands, this became a true, mainstream cultural sensation.

I've spoken to the next generation of cinephiles and believe Hollywood needs a wake-up call. It's a drum I've been banging for a little bit now. "Backrooms" is a call that is too loud to ignore and may well be the wake-up call that Hollywood actually answers. It's time to cater more directly and more broadly to Gen Z. As evidenced by this movie's full-blown success in the early going, they will turn up when they are directly catered to.

"Backrooms" is a Gen Z franchise through and through. It's not Marvel, which was really for millennials. It's not something from the '80s that Hollywood is trying to make cool again that people born in the 2000s are far too young to actually care about. This is for them very explicitly. And much like Curry Barker's "Obsession," it's kind of about them, too. It's a story for their generation, which makes it exciting for that generation.

Much like "Five Nights at Freddy's" gave Gen Z a blockbuster to call their own, "Backrooms" is tapping that same vein. It's not unlike how "A Minecraft Movie" made nearly $1 billion last year. Or how stuff from the early 2000s, like "Lilo & Stitch," is the sweet spot in the nostalgia cycle right now. This stuff is all aimed at the younger generation, and it excites them. Period.

If Hollywood wishes to stay relevant, and if we want movie theaters to still be a thing 20 years from now, Gen Z has to care about what is being put on the big screen. This movie made them care. This shouldn't be a one-off situation. It should be the start of a new movement.

"Backrooms" is in theaters now.