This past weekend marked a tectonic shift in Hollywood that’s sent shock waves across the industry.
“Backrooms,” a horror film born out of a 4chan creepypasta and produced for around $10 million, opened to an extraordinary $81 million, smashing records for distributor A24; and “Obsession,” a horror film made on a budget of $750,000, grossed $26.4 million in its third weekend of release — a 10% jump from the previous weekend — and crossed $100 million domestically. Meanwhile, “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” a “Star Wars” spinoff with a $165 million price tag, came in third, tumbling 70% in its second weekend, and its opening weekend was the lowest ever for a “Star Wars” film under Disney.
“We knew indie horror was hot, but we didn’t know how hot,” analyst Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations told Variety. “It’s actually competing with the big summer blockbusters.”
That’s only part of the story, of course. Both “Backrooms” and “Obsession” came from the fertile minds of two young filmmakers forged in the fires of the world’s top streaming platform, YouTube: Kane Parsons, 20, and Curry Barker, 26. Earlier this year, “Iron Lung,” a $3 million self-funded and self-distributed sci-fi horror flick from YouTube vet Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach, stunned box office analysts when it opened to $18.2 million, over two-and-a-half times the opening frame of “Melania,” despite that film costing $75 million.
