Huge historic start for Backrooms at the US box office

Two small horror films are attracting (young) crowds to American theaters in recent days. And Star Wars is paying the price.

The expected phenomenon is well and truly underway.

Backrooms took over the US box office this weekend. The psychological thriller produced by A24 got off to a simply historic start with $81 million collected in 3,442 North American theaters during its first weekend of release.

Directed by the young 20-year-old videographer Kane Parsons, revealed on YouTube thanks to his viral series of the same name, the film shatters all predictions (the first estimates predicted a launch of between 40 and 50 million dollars). Backrooms ultimately did much better and already posted $118 million in worldwide revenue after only a few days of operation.

Produced for around $10 million, the film has already established itself as one of the highest-grossing feature films of the year.

The story follows a patient who reveals to his therapist that he has discovered a hidden dimension beyond reality. When he mysteriously disappears, his therapist sets out to search for him in this unknown universe. The film is starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, who has just won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for Fjord by Christan Mungiu.

The success of Backrooms is above all generational: the film attracted a particularly young audience: almost 85% of American spectators this weekend were under 35!

With this $81 million launch, Backrooms offers A24 the biggest start in its history, exploding the previous record held by Civil War by Alex Garland, which opened to $25.5 million in 2024. The film also marks the best start of all time for an original horror film, as well as the biggest launch ever for a first non-franchise feature film.

Finally, Kane Parsons becomes the youngest director in history to place a film in first place at the American box office. The previous record belonged to Josh Trank, who was 27 when Chronicle took the lead in 2012 with $22 million in its first weekend.

Gen-Z chose their side this weekend and favored horror, since it is the other horror sensation of the moment, Obsessionwhich continues its exceptional journey and climbs to second place in the ranking across the Atlantic. The film, directed by 26-year-old Curry Barker, grew again in its third weekend with $26.4 million in 2,781 theaters, up 10% from the previous weekend. According to Focus Features, it is the first film since 1982 to see revenue increase in both its second and third non-holiday weekends.

After three weeks on display, Obsession now has 106 million dollars in American revenue for a budget of only 1 million dollars.

Producer Jason Blum did not hide his enthusiasm on social networks. It must be said that he is behind the two hits of the moment:

“Blumhouse-Atomic Monster has the number 1 and number 2 films in the country this weekend, both made with next to nothing. The theaters are packed. What a time to make horror films.”

As a result, American youth visibly sulked Star Wars. After its already inglorious and historically low start for the franchise, The Mandalorian and Grogu is experiencing an even more complicated second weekend.

The spin-off of the Disney series collapsed and saw its attendance drop by 70%. It has already lost the lead at the US box office and falls to third place in the ranking with 25 million dollars collected in 4,300 theaters. A particularly severe decline which seems to confirm that the franchise is struggling to appeal to the new generation and beyond its historic core of fans, after seven years of absence on the big screen.

The new adventure in the galaxy far, far away has so far totaled $137.4 million in the United States and $246.6 million worldwide.

For Disney, however, the operation remains far from being a failure. Produced for $165 million, the film constitutes an additional source of revenue before its arrival on Disney+, not to mention the significant sales of derivative products linked to Baby Yoda.

Despite everything, this weekend will go down as the one where two young directors from YouTube took Hollywood by storm with two horror films produced for a fraction of the budget of traditional blockbusters. A striking demonstration that the rules of the box office continue to evolve.