Inside Hollywood’s creator-driven youth movement

Indie horror film Backrooms dominated the box office this past weekend, topping the charts both domestically ($81.4 million) and globally ($118 million) en route to the biggest opening in A24 history.

The horror film—spawned from a YouTube series which itself was inspired by a copypasta forum horror story—is helping change the perception of what can be a massive hit in the industry alongside other similar hits.

It’s a young person’s game

Backrooms director Kane Parsons, 20, whose YouTube videos helped propel the horror concept to internet fame, is now the youngest director to helm a #1 box office film globally.

Parsons’ film is the latest in a creator-driven wave of filmmaking that’s seen success in Hollywood so far this year.

• Obsession, a horror film written and directed by 26-year-old YouTube/TikTok star Curry Barker, has already earned $104.8 million domestically and $148 million worldwide after just two weekends.
• Iron Lung, the self-financed indie sci-fi horror film by YouTuber Markiplier, earned $51.2 million worldwide on just a ~$3 million budget earlier this year.

The youth movement extends to theaters. For Backrooms, exit polling shows 86% of the film’s domestic audience was under 35, while two-thirds were under 25. The numbers tell a similar tale for Obsession, where ~75% of the audience was under 35.

Notable quote: "I've covered box office results literally hundreds of times in my career. The mind-blowing success of 'Backrooms' and 'Obsession' this weekend easily ranks in the top 1% as far as long-term significance for the movie business," said the WSJ’s Ben Fritz.