A24’s ‘Backrooms’ Becomes the 13th Highest-Grossing Horror Film in North America
When Kane Parsons uploaded his first ‘Backrooms’ short to YouTube in 2022, he was a teenager creating found footage horror on a minimal budget, tapping into one of the internet’s most unsettling mythologies.
The video quickly went viral, gaining a cult following and eventually attracting the attention of A24, who offered the then-teenager a feature film deal. Few could have anticipated the remarkable journey from that initial upload to the current success at the domestic box office.
‘Backrooms,’ Parsons’ feature-length adaptation of his viral web series, premiered in theaters on May 29, achieving an impressive $81.4 million domestic debut. This performance shattered A24’s previous opening weekend record, making Parsons, at just 20 years old, the youngest filmmaker in history to top the North American box office. The film also recorded the biggest opening weekend ever for an original horror movie, more than tripling the previous A24 record set by Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ in 2024. Since then, the film’s trajectory has been nothing short of phenomenal.
By its third weekend, the film reached yet another historic milestone. According to box office analyst Luiz Fernando, ‘Backrooms’ earned an estimated $11.5 million during its third three-day frame, bringing its domestic cumulative total to $160.2 million. This figure surpassed ‘A Quiet Place Part Two’s’ $160.1 million domestic lifetime total, officially making the A24 horror film the 13th highest-grossing horror movie of all time at the North American box office.
The Kane Parsons film collected approximately $11.7 million on its third three-day weekend, experiencing a 56.8% decline and losing 161 theaters on Friday. This brought its domestic total to the $160 million range after just three weekends in theaters. While a 56% drop is notable, it remains an impressive result for a film produced on a modest budget.
The budget is what makes this entire story almost surreal. A24 and Chernin Entertainment co-financed ‘Backrooms’ for around $10 million, meaning it has already returned its investment many times over, standing as one of the most profitable theatrical releases in recent memory. As Luiz Fernando noted, even if the film stopped playing tomorrow, it has already multiplied its production cost by over 16 times through U.S. box office alone. Projections now suggest a final domestic run between $175 million and $190 million.
The film follows a small-town furniture store owner who discovers a portal to an otherworldly dimension in his showroom, featuring a cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, and Mark Duplass. James Wan, Shawn Levy, and Osgood Perkins serve as producers, alongside Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping.
Parsons is part of a wave of YouTube creators transitioning to mainstream cinema, bringing their vast online fanbases with them. This trend follows in the footsteps of Markiplier’s ‘Iron Lung’ and Curry Barker’s ‘Obsession,’ both low-budget sensations that have been rewriting box office norms this summer. The pattern is becoming increasingly difficult for Hollywood to ignore: three consecutive YouTube filmmakers, three major theatrical hits.
Parsons has addressed speculation about a sequel, stating he is “not sure where that got out” regarding reports of him seeking a sequel writer, calling it “more like a hallucination.” However, he has described a TV continuation as his “dream scenario.”
Globally, ‘Backrooms’ has now surpassed the worldwide totals of several major horror titles including ‘Get Out,’ ‘Us,’ ‘Annabelle,’ ‘Halloween,’ and ‘A Quiet Place: Day One,’ ranking it among the all-time top 35 highest-grossing horror films worldwide. For a film that originated from a 4chan post and a teenager’s YouTube channel, that is a statement that would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago.
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