Young audiences turned out in droves to movie theaters around the country this weekend. It wasn’t for the big-budget “Star Wars” movie “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which fell sharply in its second weekend, however, but for a small-budget horror from a 20-year-old first-time filmmaker that began on the internet.
“Backrooms,” released by A24 in 3,442 locations in the U.S. and Canada, made an astonishing $81.5 million in its first three days in theaters, according to studio estimates on Sunday. That’s just a few hundred thousand dollars shy of what “The Mandalorian and Grogu” earned in its first three days last weekend, and “Backrooms,” which was directed and co-written by YouTube creator Kane Parsons, cost only $10 million to produce.
The wild success of “Backrooms” didn’t even hurt “Obsession,” which is also the directorial debut of a YouTuber, Curry Barker, who is only 26. Three weekends in, “Obsession,” a movie that cost less than $1 million to make, still hasn’t dropped below its opening weekend earnings. This weekend, it was up 10% with another $26.4 million for a second-place finish, leaving “Star Wars,” the legacy franchise movie from the veteran filmmaker and the Walt Disney Studios, in third with $25 million.
YouTube might not be the death of movie theaters after all. If this weekend is any indication, it could be the industry’s new great hope.
This is a weekend where theaters also hosted the debuts of “The Breadwinner,” a PG-rated family comedy starring the popular comedian Nate Bargatze, and “Pressure,” a solid World War II drama about the tense 72 hours before D-Day with Oscar winner Brendan Fraser. But it was the 20-something YouTubers that drew the most crowds. And both “Backrooms” and “Obsession” were produced by Blumhouse-Atomic Monster.
Abhijay Prakash, the president of Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, said that the weekend is both staggering and validation of their business, which has from the beginning championed original horror movies that appeal to younger audiences, and generated over $10 billion in box office to date.
He noted that they’ve made a point of looking for up-and-coming talent on YouTube and, knowing how Hollywood works, this weekend will likely inspire a wave of copycats. But beyond that, he’s encouraged by the fact that the young creators who’ve already had enormous success online still value the cultural currency of theatrical movies.