Hollywood is about to learn the wrong lesson from BACKROOMS and OBSESSION.
Kane Parsons and Curry Barker did not just make two hit horror movies. They blew up the summer box office from outside the traditional system.
BACKROOMS opened to around $81 million domestic on a $10 million budget. OBSESSION has already crossed $150 million worldwide after costing less than $1 million.
That is insane.
But the reason these movies worked is not simply “YouTuber plus horror equals money.”
They worked because these filmmakers already had an audience. They understood internet horror, Gen Z anxiety, loneliness, obsession, liminal spaces, and the kind of weird shit younger audiences actually want to experience in a theater.
Hollywood will probably see this and start buying every viral short, creepypasta, ARG, analog horror channel, and weird YouTube series it can find.
Some of that will be exciting.
A lot of it will probably be terrible.
Because the lesson is not “adapt everything online as fast as possible.”
The lesson is that a kid with a camera, taste, and a direct line to an audience can now beat the studio system at its own game.
That is great news for YouTubers and online filmmakers.
It is probably terrifying news for everyone who spent $120,000 at film school waiting for permission to break in.