‘Backrooms 2’ Is Officially Happening, and the Only Director Who Could Do It Justice Is Coming Back

A24’s willingness to bet on young, unproven filmmakers has paid off spectacularly more than once, but few gambles have paid off quite as dramatically as the studio’s decision to hand a feature film to a 19-year-old YouTuber. What started as a viral found-footage horror series has since become one of the year’s most surprising box office phenomena, and the studio isn’t wasting any time capitalizing on that success.

‘Backrooms’ originated in January 2022, when a teenage Kane Parsons began uploading analog horror shorts based on the internet’s Backrooms creepypasta to his YouTube channel. That web series eventually caught A24’s attention, leading to a feature adaptation that hit theaters in May 2026 starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, and Mark Duplass.

The gamble paid off in a massive way. ‘Backrooms’ pulled in $394 million worldwide against a production budget under $10 million, and Parsons became the youngest director in history to have a film debut at number one at both the domestic and global box office. Now that success is officially being extended into a second chapter.

Kane Parsons has officially signed on to direct ‘Backrooms 2’ for A24, with a formal studio announcement expected imminently. The sequel will follow the events of the first film and dive deeper into the franchise’s broader mythology beyond its yellow-walled liminal spaces, expanding on the mysterious organization known as Async that was introduced in the original.

Parsons has been signaling his intentions for the franchise’s future for years now. He explained that expanding Backrooms into more than a single film was always part of the plan, describing the theatrical release as a foot in the door toward the true root of the narrative he’s been developing online since 2022, in comments made to SuperHeroHype.

That long-term vision lines up with comments Parsons made earlier this year as well. Speaking with Variety back in May, he confirmed that sequels have always been more than just an option for the franchise, noting that he’d taken the original YouTube series as far as he could before making the leap into feature filmmaking.

Behind the scenes, ‘Longlegs’ director Osgood Perkins has played a significant mentorship role throughout Parsons’ transition from YouTube creator to feature director, helping develop the original film’s screenplay and guiding him through his first full production. Perkins served as a producer on the original ‘Backrooms’ and is reportedly continuing to collaborate with Parsons on additional projects moving forward.

The first film’s critical reception only strengthened the case for a sequel. ‘Backrooms’ currently holds an 87 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviewers praising Parsons’ ability to blend atmospheric dread with genuine narrative mystery, drawing comparisons to everything from ‘The Blair Witch Project’ to ‘Severance’ and even David Lynch’s stranger sensibilities.

Parsons was reportedly actively searching for a screenwriter to help shape the sequel’s story even before the director announcement became official, suggesting the follow-up is still in its earliest development stages. No release date or additional plot details have been confirmed at this time.

With Parsons locked in to continue steering the franchise he built from scratch as a teenager, ‘Backrooms 2’ arrives as one of the more unusual sequel stories in recent memory, a horror hit built entirely around trusting a young creator’s original vision rather than handing it off elsewhere. Given how well that trust paid off the first time, A24 clearly isn’t interested in changing course now.

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