This weekend, Backrooms earned $81.4 million domestically and $118 million globally. The horror film, spawned from a YouTube series which was spawned from a copypasta forum horror story, is now the talk of Hollywood alongside Obsession, the two changing the perception of what can be a massive hit in the industry.
Backrooms is not just big. Between its director, distributor and its overall numbers, it has set a number of industry records that are worth listing out, possibly more, depending on how deep into the metrics you want to get. But the major ones:
- Kane Parsons, age 20, is now the youngest director to helm a #1 box office film globally
- Parsons also now has the record for the largest opening weekend for a first-time feature director on an original film
- Backrooms is A24’s biggest opening weekend ever
- Backrooms is the biggest R-rated opening weekend of 2026, and now in the top 15 R-rated openings of all time
- Backrooms is the largest original horror movie debut in history
That last one is significant, as what it’s being compared to are some of the heaviest hitters in horror history and, as mentioned, none are original IPs, either adaptations or sequels. We have:
- IT – $123 million domestic opening weekend
- IT: Chapter Two – $91 million domestic opening weekend
- The Conjuring: Last Rites – $84 million domestic opening weekend
- Backrooms – $81.5 million domestic opening weekend
- Five Nights at Freddy’s – $80 million domestic opening weekend
The IT movies are obviously two of dozens of Stephen King book adaptations. The Conjuring is a finale sequel to a long-running horror series. Five Nights at Freddy’s is an adaptation of a popular video game. And yet there is Backrooms. Yes, there are all-time megahits like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity, which made hundreds of millions. But that took a while, and their opening weekends were not anywhere even close to this.
To answer your next question, yes, this performance obviously means that Backrooms is going to get a sequel or three. Kane Parsons has already talked about how that was always the intent, as this is a 22-episode YouTube series spanning many hours. Backrooms is not a straight adaptation of that, at introduces new developments and lore, but the point is, there’s a lot to work with in this universe, and as they say in the movie, they’ve barely scratched the surface. We’ll likely hear some more sequel news in the coming weeks and months.
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