‘The Backrooms’ Is On Track to Break a Massive A24 Record

Horror has always had a strange way of finding its biggest audience in the most unassuming places, and the genre’s latest cultural moment is unfolding in theaters right now.

A24, the indie studio known for prestige darlings and arthouse experiments, has spent years building a reputation for quality over quantity. That reputation is now colliding head on with mainstream box office numbers nobody saw coming.

The film at the center of it all is ‘Backrooms’, a horror project that started life as a viral YouTube series before becoming one of the most talked about theatrical releases of the year. Audiences under 35 have shown up in droves, and the buzz around the film has only grown louder with each passing week since its release.

‘Backrooms’ could become the first A24 film ever to cross the 300 million dollar mark at the global box office. That would be an unprecedented milestone for a studio that has historically thrived on smaller, more intimate hits rather than blockbuster numbers.

The numbers leading up to this prediction are already staggering. The film earned 144 million dollars globally just six days after its release, after launching to 81 million domestically and 118 million worldwide in its opening weekend. It has since grossed 212.6 million dollars globally, making it the highest grossing movie in A24’s history, surpassing ‘Marty Supreme’, which had previously held that title with 191 million dollars worldwide.

What makes these numbers even more remarkable is the budget behind the film. ‘Backrooms’ was made on a reported 10 million dollar budget, a figure that makes its current box office haul almost unheard of for a film of this scale. Using the traditional break even formula, the movie likely covered its costs at around 25 million dollars, meaning everything beyond that point is pure profit for A24 and its partners.

The film follows a familiar but effective setup for horror fans. The story centers on a therapist played by Renate Reinsve who must venture into an eerie dimension beyond reality to save her patient, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. The concept draws from the Backrooms creepypasta, a piece of internet folklore about endless, unsettling liminal spaces that has fascinated online communities for years.

Behind the camera is Kane Parsons, whose journey to this moment has become its own story within the story. Parsons originally went viral on his KanePixels YouTube channel with found footage videos based on the Backrooms concept, racking up over 84 million views before landing the opportunity to direct the feature film for A24. At just 20 years old, he became the youngest filmmaker in history to top the domestic box office, breaking a record previously held by Josh Trank, who was 27 when his film ‘Chronicle’ debuted at number one in 2012.

The reception from critics has matched the commercial success. On Rotten Tomatoes, ‘Backrooms’ holds a strong 89 percent critics score, with the audience driven Popcornmeter sitting at a respectable 74 percent.

Parsons has been candid about the pressure of adapting his own beloved universe for a wider audience. Speaking with Film Shrine, he reflected on what mattered most during development. He described the screenplay as remaining fairly fluid throughout development, and said passion remains one of the most important ingredients in any creative project, adding that obsession behind the system of an art project tends to produce great results.

The second weekend numbers tell an interesting story about the film’s staying power. After a steep 70 percent drop in its second weekend, the film still managed to pull in 25.9 million dollars, a figure that, while down significantly, remains strong for a horror title at this stage of its run.

If ‘Backrooms’ does eventually cross 300 million dollars worldwide, it would mark a watershed moment for A24. The studio has spent over a decade cultivating a brand built on artistic credibility, and a number like that would prove those two things, prestige and mass appeal, are not mutually exclusive.

For now, the film continues to hold strong in theaters as word spreads through social media, fan communities, and the kind of organic buzz that money cannot buy. Whether it actually reaches the 300 million dollar milestone remains to be seen, but the trajectory so far suggests it is well within reach.

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