Hollywood's latest fixation? The young YouTubers behind box-office hits like Backrooms and Obsession
Summer movie season is normally a battle of Hollywood heavyweights — but this year, two of the hottest tickets at the box office come from filmmakers who've never had movies in theatres before.
Kane Parsons, 20, and Curry Barker, 26, the directors behind Backrooms and Obsession who both built their audiences on YouTube, have become two of the youngest filmmakers to have movies top the box office.
Liminal space horror Backrooms opened at No. 1 in theatres last weekend, grossing over $5 million Cdn at the box office in Canada and $118 million US globally. On Wednesday, A24 announced that the movie had officially become its highest grossing film of all time in North America in just five days.
In second place was psychological horror Obsession by Barker. Since its release just over two weeks ago, it's made $150 million US at the global box office.
Not only are these movies made by hot, young directors, but the audiences are also young, with many following the directors from their respective YouTube channels — something industry watchers suggest could shape what kind of projects get the green light in the future.
According to Aaron Couch, film editor at The Hollywood Reporter, their YouTube backgrounds could be a major factor behind their success.
"May at the box office was the most exciting time for moviegoers since Barbenheimer, but it feels like a breath of fresh air," said Couch.
"You have new talents, you have a movie that had no-name actors, you had a 20-year-old bringing his strange corner of the internet to the masses."
Backrooms began as a viral 22-video found-footage YouTube series that has since amassed over 25 million views and quickly developed a cult following.
Parsons told The Independent that his "world on YouTube, the whole landscape that I've grown up with, has necessitated an extreme attention to detail since the beginning."
Barker, whose comedy sketches have been a YouTube fixture, has also dipped into the horror pool before Obsession. He released the feature-length horror film Milk & Serial entirely on YouTube in 2024.
Chris Ferguson, a Vancouver-based producer on Backrooms, says he knew Parsons' audience would transition to the big screen with him because "we were always being true to the series."
"I think the lesson is to stop underestimating the audience."
Marlow Stern, chief correspondent at Variety, says horror is a genre that lends itself to innovation because it can have a low budget entry point.
She notes that movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was made on a micro budget, yet went on to become a "cult classic that's still raking in money and producing sequels" and 2007's Paranormal Activity — produced by Jason Blum, who also produced Obsession — "made for a budget of $15,000 and ended up grossing almost $190 million."
Stern says studios can't afford to ignore new pipelines for films with built-in fan bases.
"YouTubers have a hold on their audience," she said. "These people have been consuming their content every day, sometimes for years."
That makes sense to Ferguson, who says YouTube is a breeding ground for great video content producers, and if you're not looking there for talent, "you're out of touch with the current moment."
Both films are the latest examples of young horror directors breaking into the box office by shifting away from bloated, expensive productions.
Obsession was filmed on a budget of just $750,000, while Backrooms had a budget of $10 million.
The same weekend Obsession came out, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu was released. With an estimated budget of $165 million, it grossed just $81 million, and ticket sales continued to drop.
"Obsession is the first movie since Steven Spielberg's ET in 1982 where it's gone up in the second weekend, gone up in the third weekend. That doesn't happen," said Couch, referring to the movie's second and third weekend box-office increases. "It's just really exciting, something fresh."
According to exit polls reported by The Associated Press, 86 per cent of the Backrooms audience was under 35, more than half were 25 or younger and 44 per cent were under 21. With Obsession, 75 per cent were between 18 and 25.
In some ways, the conditions resulting in Gen Z audiences showing up en masse for these releases are mimicking those that led to the New Hollywood era of filmmaking.
In the late 1960s, the old studio system was declining as it produced increasingly expensive flops, and young directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola were given unprecedented creative freedom, resulting in original movies made with a gritty realism that helped revive the film industry.
Couch says what's happening now is yet another generational shift.
"Younger moviegoers are the ones that are seen as being able to drive the box office," he said, noting that franchises like Star Wars and the Marvel movies with huge budgets and big stars attached are no longer resonating with younger audiences.
"If you're in your 20s, those things don't really feel like they're made for you necessarily. Whereas this feels kind of authentic."
He suggests that while blockbusters like Avengers will still get made, the success of these smaller films means production companies may be more willing to back them.
"In a time of malaise in Hollywood, this feels like there's finally a path forward," said Couch. "And movies can be fun again and feel fresh."
cbc.ca
