A 20-Year-Old Made ‘Backrooms’. Now It’s Making A24 History

BusinessHollywood & EntertainmentA 20-Year-Old Made ‘Backrooms’. Now It’s Making A24 HistoryByHannah Abraham,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Hannah Abraham covers entertainment, culture and business.Follow AuthorJun 01, 2026, 01:14am EDTJun 01, 2026, 01:16am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.promotional still for kane parson's 'backrooms'imdbKane Parsons is 20 years old, and as of this weekend he is the director of the biggest opening in A24’s 14-year history. Backrooms, the psychological horror film he adapted from his own viral YouTube series, opened to $81.4 million domestically and $118 million worldwide on its debut weekend of May 29.Against a production budget of $10 million, co-financed by A24 and Chernin Entertainment, the numbers represent one of the most profitable launches of 2026 and the clearest signal yet that the generation of filmmakers who built audiences on YouTube is now dominating theatrical cinema.Forbes‘Backrooms’ Sets A24 Record With $81 Million Opening Weekend—Beating Out ‘Obsession’ And ‘Mandalorian’By Ty RoushWhat Backrooms Is AboutBackrooms is rooted in one of the internet’s most enduring pieces of folk horror. The concept originated from a single photograph of an empty, fluorescent-lit office corridor posted anonymously online in 2019 — the image sparked a mythology around the idea of "no-clipping" out of reality and finding oneself trapped in an infinite series of liminal spaces. Parsons, then a teenager, turned that mythology into a found-footage YouTube series that has accumulated 80 million views. The series followed a fictional research group venturing deeper into these spaces, and its combination of genuine dread and DIY filmmaking craft caught the attention of A24, which trusted Parsons to make the feature himself rather than hand the concept to an established directo...