“Backrooms” Director Kane Parsons, 20, Becomes Youngest Filmmaker to Hit No. 1 at the Box Office
“Backrooms” Director Kane Parsons, 20, Becomes Youngest Filmmaker to Hit No. 1 at the Box Office
Tommy McArdleMon, June 1, 2026 at 3:06 PM UTC
0
Kane Parsons attends the BACKROOMS London Special Screening at Vue West End on May 19, 2026 ; Chiwetel Ejiofor in 'Backrooms' (2026).
Credit: Alan Chapman/Dave Benett/Getty; Courtesy of A24
-
Backrooms, the new horror movie from 20-year-old director Kane Parsons, debuted at No. 1 at the domestic box office after it made $81.5 million in its opening weekend
According to multiple outlets, Parsons is now the youngest director ever to have made a movie that opens at No. 1
Parsons and Obsession director Curry Barker are rising in popularity as 20-something filmmakers who got their start on YouTube
Kane Parsons and Backrooms have arrived in Hollywood.
A24's latest horror sensation, Backrooms,dominated the domestic box office over the weekend. The movie, which stars Renate Reinsve, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mark Duplass, made $81.5 million following its release on May 29, more than double any other movie in theaters.
According to multiple outlets, Parsons, 20, is now the youngest director, by several years, to have made the No. 1 movie at the box office. Chronicle filmmaker Josh Trank previously held that record; he was 27 when that movie opened in first place at the box office back in 2012, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and Variety.
Renate Reinsve in 'Backrooms' (2026).
Credit: Courtesy of A24
The movie is also the highest-grossing opening weekend for an A24 movie and surpassed a record previously set by Civil War in 2024.
Parsons is the youngest-ever director to make a movie for A24. He originally made a name for himself on the internet as a DIY filmmaker on YouTube in recent years for his viral series The Backrooms (Found Footage), which the new movie is based on.
The YouTube series was originally inspired by a meme created on 4chan in 2019 that saw internet users uploading images of eerie liminal spaces. Parsons' haunting videos, filmed and shared on the internet in the so-called creepypasta tradition, centered on a fictional 1990s research institute discovering the Backrooms and attempting to document the vacant rooms.
Obsession, another popular horror movie directed by a 20-something filmmaker in Curry Barker, also continued to succeed at the box office over the weekend. That movie grossed an additional $26.4 million, while Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu made $25 million.
Advertisement
Notably, Backrooms' opening nearly matched The Mandalorian and Grogu's own domestic box office opening ($81.6 million) just one week prior, as the first Star Wars movie since 2019 seemingly underperforms relative to expectations for the franchise.
Chiwetel Ejiofor in Backrooms
Credit: A24
In Backrooms, Ejiofor portrays a furniture store manager who comes across a seemingly endless series of bizarre rooms inside the store he works at. The movie follows his disappearance inside the rooms and his therapist's (Reinsve) efforts to search for him.
According to IndieWire, Parsons spent his senior year of high school fielding offers from Hollywood bigwigs for a feature-length Backrooms while applying to colleges. He ultimately decided to delay pursuing higher education and take the deal from A24.
“It very much felt like, boom, suddenly there's a new avenue that is still risky,” he said of choosing Hollywood over college. “It's not stable at all. And I was assuming this will come and this will go, this will be over quickly. This is just what happens, and this is neat, but I'm going to try not to get too caught up in it.”
— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Backrooms and Obsession are in theaters now.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
