Hollywood executives stared at the weekend numbers and blinked twice. Backrooms opened to $81.5 million domestically. Obsession added another $26.4 million in its third frame. And Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu slipped to third with $25 million after a brutal 69 percent drop.
Two films made by creators in their early twenties. One with a $10 million budget. The other produced for less than $1 million. Both now sit ahead of a Disney tentpole whose reported costs, including marketing, reportedly approached $300 million. The math does not lie. The implications stretch far beyond one Memorial Day frame.
Kane Parsons directed Backrooms for A24. The 20-year-old had already built a massive following through his YouTube series based on the viral creepypasta concept of endless, liminal office rooms that trap the unwary. His feature debut, co-written with Will Soodik and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, transformed that unsettling internet lore into a psychological horror experience that drew young audiences in droves. Exit polls showed 88 percent of ticket buyers under 35, with more than half under 25 and 44 percent under 21. Many came in groups. Some returned multiple times.
Parsons started the project years earlier as a teenager experimenting with Blender software. The original short racked up tens of millions of views. Studios took notice. A24 signed him at 19, making him the studio’s youngest director. Producer Kori Adelson later described his work as “so singular and evocative.” The film opened to a record for A24, beating the previous high set by Civil War. Globally it crossed $118 million quickly.
Yet Backrooms did not cannibalize its fellow low-budget success. Obsession, directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker in his first feature, continued its extraordinary run. The Focus Features release, made for roughly $750,000 according to Barker’s comments to The New Yorker reported in Variety, climbed 10 percent in its third weekend to reach $104.7 million domestically and $148 million worldwide. It now stands as Focus Features’ highest-grossing domestic title. An A- CinemaScore and 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes helped fuel word of mouth that refused to fade.
Both films share ties to Blumhouse and Atomic Monster. Abhijay Prakash, president of Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, called the weekend staggering. “It’s a great sign of relevance for us,” he told Fortune. “With some distance, we’ll probably look back at this as a real turning point.” Prakash noted the companies’ long focus on original horror aimed at younger viewers. The approach has generated more than $10 billion in box office over the years. This weekend delivered fresh proof.
Luis Olloqui, CEO of Cinépolis USA, watched sellouts pile up across his dine-in locations. “We were a little worried that they would be competing for the same audience. It’s not the case,” he said in the same Fortune report. “It shows that when we have the right content, people from all ages are willing to go to the theater.” The two titles pulled distinct yet overlapping crowds without apparent friction.
The Mandalorian and Grogu, directed by Jon Favreau, opened the previous weekend to roughly $82 million domestically before the sharp second-weekend decline. Its global total stands at $246.6 million. Industry analysts pointed to fatigue with franchise fare and stronger competition from original stories that felt fresh to younger demographics. Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore, put it plainly. “Everyone’s asking what’s the next big thing in Hollywood for movies, and what can bring people back to the movie theater? And this may be it,” he observed in Fortune.
Deadline’s box office coverage added texture. Backrooms averaged $13.56 per ticket across 3,442 locations. Repeat viewers and strong grades from women under 25 drove the numbers higher than initial forecasts. Michael De Luca commented that these filmmakers “are in a dialogue with their audience.” The phrase captures something essential. Parsons and Barker arrived with built-in communities that translated directly to ticket sales. Their online work had already proven they understood how to speak to viewers raised on short-form video and creepypasta lore.
And the contrast could not be sharper. A Star Wars film with the full weight of Disney marketing behind it. Two horror titles with modest production spends, targeted releases, and creators who grew up making content for free on YouTube. One cost less than many studio development budgets. The other carried the production values expected of a midrange genre picture yet still delivered enormous returns. Profit margins on Obsession look historic. The film has already earned more than 75 times its reported cost.
Recent coverage reinforces the trend. World of Reel tracked Obsession holding the top spot midweek before Backrooms arrived with previews that shattered records. Bespin Bulletin highlighted the 69 percent drop for the Star Wars entry and noted both indie horrors could overtake it in cumulative domestic earnings within weeks. Forbes reported on Parsons’ $10.4 million Thursday previews, which alone exceeded many films’ entire opening weekends.
Critics have responded with cautious admiration. The New York Times called the expansion of the Backrooms concept “lost in the expansion” in some sequences yet praised its initial eerie banality. The Guardian labeled it “icily disturbing” and noted how Parsons rewrites certain genre expectations. Audience reaction on platforms such as X shows packed theaters, spontaneous applause after screenings, and teenagers navigating parental restrictions for the R-rated titles.
So what happens next. Studios have already begun scouting YouTube and TikTok for the next breakout voice. The success validates years of Blumhouse’s strategy of betting small on original concepts with passionate fan bases. It also raises pointed questions about the sustainability of ever-larger franchise budgets when cheaper films can deliver both cultural impact and outsized financial returns.
Parsons described the transition from digital shorts to a full theatrical feature as surreal. In interviews he spoke of stepping onto sets that matched the digital spaces he had modeled for years, an experience that blurred the line between online creation and physical filmmaking. Barker, for his part, once considered releasing Obsession directly to YouTube before traditional distribution took over. The decision paid off handsomely.
The weekend delivered one more data point in a shifting market. Horror continues to outperform expectations at the low end while certain tentpoles stumble. Younger viewers still fill seats when the story feels made for them rather than at them. And creators who learned their craft posting videos online have shown they can command the biggest screen in town.
Hollywood will study these numbers for months. Some will chase the trend clumsily. Others may recognize that authenticity, modest budgets, and direct connection to audiences matter more than star power or IP familiarity. The two young directors proved the point without fanfare. Their films simply showed up, connected, and won the weekend. The rest of the industry now has to figure out what comes after that.
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