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A24 Acquires ‘Backrooms’ and Sequel Rights from 20-Year-Old YouTube Creator for Reported $81.4M Opening
The 20-year-old director’s debut horror film and Curry Barker’s “Obsession” drove strong youth attendance and helped push May box office above $1 billion for the first time since 2019.
Jun 2, 9:45 AM·1m read1 source
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A24 secured rights to a sequel when it signed its contract with 20-year-old director Kane Parsons for the horror film “Backrooms,” Page Six Hollywood reported. Parsons lives with his parents in Northern California and does not have an agent. 4 million.
Distributor data showed that 86 percent of the opening-weekend audience was under 35, with an average age of 25. Chiwetel Ejiofor appears in the movie. Curry Barker’s “Obsession,” released around the same time, drew 75 percent of its first two weekends from viewers aged 18-34.
The 26-year-old Barker directed the film, which stars Inde Navarrette. Focus Features acquired it after its screening in the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. Both releases contributed to the first May since 2019 in which domestic box office exceeded $1 billion, according to Comscore.
Cinemark recorded its best May ever, and AMC posted its strongest May since before the pandemic. The industry is on pace for its first year above $9 billion since 2019. A December 2025 CinemaUnited study found that Gen Z, defined as those born in or after 2012, attended movies more than six times per year last year, up from fewer than five times in 2024.
Forty-one percent of Gen Z moviegoers went at least six times in 2025, compared with 31 percent in 2022. A24 partnered with James Wan, Shawn Levy, and Peter Chernin to win a 2023 bidding war for “Backrooms” after Parsons’ original YouTube series went viral. Lucas Ford, then an assistant at Levy’s 21 Laps Entertainment, first contacted Parsons on the platform.
Recent horror titles such as “Weapons,” which earned Amy Madigan an Oscar nomination and is developing a prequel centered on the “Aunt Gladys” character, and Mark Fischbach’s self-financed “Iron Lung” have also performed strongly. A top studio executive told Page Six Hollywood that the current releases succeeded because they originated on YouTube and Reddit rather than through conventional studio development.
