How YouTuber-Made Horror 'Backrooms' Won the Box Office

Star Wars got dethroned in its second week by two low-budget horror movies directed by filmmakers who got their start on YouTube. That is not a hypothetical about where the industry might be headed. That is what happened this weekend.

And it happened in a healthy market, not a dying one. Domestic ticket sales came in around $179 million, up roughly 20% from the same weekend last year. AMC just reported its highest May attendance since before the pandemic. People are still showing up. The interesting question is what they are showing up for.

The story of the weekend: YouTube-born filmmakers took the top two spots

Within a few weeks of each other, Kane Parsons and Koryn Barker have delivered surprise hits. Both directors are under 30. Both started online.

Parsons directed Backrooms, the cult horror project that began as an internet story back in 2019. It opened to over $80 million domestically and more than $100 million worldwide, making it the biggest opening weekend A24 has ever had. Barker directed Obsession, a supernatural romantic horror film that has quietly become one of the highest-grossing domestic releases in Focus Features history.

I want to be careful about the lesson here. It is not simply "franchise fatigue" or "YouTubers are the future." It is that audiences reward original, culturally relevant stories. As a fan, I do not want iconic IP like Star Wars to fail. I want Star Wars to be great. But when its return to theaters gets overshadowed by two cheap horror films, that tells you something. And honestly it is kind of exciting, because most of our biggest franchises started as original ideas too. Horror has been carrying that torch lately. Weapons is one of my favorite recent examples: a great film and a genuinely original concept.

Weekend box office results

#	Film	Note
1	Backrooms	Over $80M domestic, $100M+ worldwide. A24's biggest opening ever.
2	Obsession	Still building: +30% in week two, +10% this weekend.
3	The Mandalorian and Grogu	Fell a brutal 70% in week two.
4	Michael	Serious global staying power, nearing $1B worldwide.
5	The Breadwinner	Charming-looking, largely under the radar.
6-10	The Devil Wears Prada 2, Pressure, The Sheep Detective, Passenger, Mortal Kombat 2	Rounding out the top ten.

Obsession might actually be the more fascinating story to me. Backrooms is the explosive opening. Obsession is doing the rarer thing: it is building. I did not know anything about it until a friend of my wife's mentioned it, which tells me the marketing budget was modest. Word of mouth is exactly how you get a 30% jump in week two and another 10% on top of that.

Meanwhile, The Mandalorian and Grogu dropped a staggering 70%. A normal week-two decline is 40 to 50%. For Star Wars, that is close to a collapse. I saw it this weekend, and I will be honest, it was the definition of mid. It felt like a Disney Plus show, which, to be fair, is what The Mandalorian has always been.

A quick word for Michael, which I really enjoyed even if it felt a little incomplete. It is closing in on the billion-dollar mark worldwide. If it gets there, do not be surprised if a sequel follows.

Is YouTube becoming Hollywood's next talent pipeline?

Sort of, but the bigger point is about development, not the platform. The success of Backrooms and Obsession shows there is real appetite for fresh voices and original stories. The catch is that those things have to be developed somewhere, and studios have to actually invest in them.

That ties directly into comments from Michael De Luca, co-chair and CEO of Warner Brothers, who warned studios against cutting too deeply into development budgets. His framing was that the relentless pursuit of new talent and fresh voices is the north star, because when you only lean on what has worked before, innovation dies inside the organization. Studios love to say they want originality, then default to safe, recognizable IP. Maybe the real takeaway from this weekend is that not every hit needs to be a blockbuster. Sometimes a unique perspective is enough.

Around the industry

Marvel is calling it "phase zero." The Russo brothers have been talking about Avengers: Doomsday, and they described the approach as starting over from scratch, making sure nothing leans on the past. That is telling. It suggests Marvel knows the MCU needs a reset. Since Endgame, the whole thing has felt aimless. Bringing back the Russos and Robert Downey Jr. is a smart move, but it does not automatically fix anything. Here is hoping Doomsday and Secret Wars actually stick the landing as a soft reboot.

Tom Holland delayed Spider-Man for Christopher Nolan. Holland reportedly pushed Spider-Man: Brand New Day so he could take a role in Nolan's The Odyssey, since the two shoots originally overlapped. He said he had to call Sony and have a very uncomfortable conversation. I get it. Every actor in Hollywood wants to work with Nolan right now, and the Odyssey cast is basically everybody. Holland is essential to Spider-Man, so that film waits for him. A massive Nolan theatrical epic is not something you pass up. If you want more on where the web-slinger is headed, I dug into what the Brand New Day trailer signals for Marvel.

AI keeps showing up. This week alone: Martin Scorsese reportedly using AI-assisted tools for storyboards, Emily Blunt rejecting AI in her voice work for Disclosure Day, and Adam Shankman denying generative AI was used in Stop That Train. The through line is that AI is now part of the public conversation around movies. But there is a big gap between using it as a planning tool and using it to replace actors, writers, and artists. That is why it is genuinely cool to hear Blunt confirm the alien noises she makes in Disclosure Day are actually her.

Trailer of the week: Disclosure Day

After a whole episode about young creators and low-budget films, the final trailer for Disclosure Day is the other side of the coin: the GOAT making an original sci-fi film. This is Steven Spielberg, the guy behind E.T. and Close Encounters. Sci-fi is his wheelhouse. The trailer plays almost like a short behind-the-scenes documentary, and it does exactly what a trailer should: it conveys the vibe, the feel, and the scale without giving the whole movie away. I hate when trailers dump the entire plot. This one just makes you desperate to understand what is going on.

Coming this weekend

Scary Movie is technically the sixth entry and the first since 2013, and it is tracking as the likely winner. Horror is hot, this one leans comedy, and it carries a lot of nostalgia for people who grew up with the franchise.

Masters of the Universe is the big risk. I understand why a studio wants a toy brand to become a movie franchise, but I am skeptical about how broad the appeal really is in 2026.

Power Ballad is my dark horse. Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, something lighter and more sincere in a weekend full of brands, horror, and big-budget nostalgia. My wife is the most excited about this one, entirely because there is a Jonas brother in it.

The pattern to watch is not YouTube specifically. It is originality. Two internet-native filmmakers just proved that a fresh idea can beat the most famous IP on the planet. Studios that noticed will be fine. The ones still chasing the safe bet should probably take notes.