Backroom and Obsession are currently taking the Hollywood box office by storm. What’s interesting is that both these films were made by two young men in their twenties who originally made videos on YouTube. The films were made on a very low budget and promoted entirely online. Teenagers who don’t usually go to cinemas are now flocking to cinemas to watch these movies. The incident shocked even the biggest Hollywood producers. According to experts, major studios will now follow the example of these YouTubers and make movies.
Helmed by 26-year-old director Kari Barker, Obsession is a dark comedy horror movie that hits theaters on May 15. Made on a budget of just $700,000, the movie has grossed nearly $150 million so far. It was an unprecedented commercial success for production companies Focus Features and Blumhouse Productions. It followed the film Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons. The young producer had been working on the project for years on his YouTube channel. However, the Parsons movie had a slightly higher budget, around $10 million. It also stars popular actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Rainsov and Mark Duplass. Nevertheless, the movie’s monopoly at the box office in its first week of release was truly amazing.
the teaEcological horror film Backroom topped the box office in its first week. The movie grossed nearly $80 million in North America and $120 million worldwide. More Gen Z or new generation audiences are flocking to watch this movie. A24, a studio known for giving opportunities to new directors, reports that Parsons is now the youngest filmmaker in Hollywood history to have films top the box office in their first week of release. Even that week, Obsession was in second place, and it was dropped to third place by Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grugoo, which was released a week earlier. Usually, most movies drop in revenue after the first week, but the opposite is happening with Obsession. Aside from its Christmas weekend release, Obsession is the first film since 1982 to have higher second- and third-week box-office earnings than ever before, according to Focus Features.
This unprecedented success means that a new generation of youngsters is ready to go to the cinema and buy tickets if they can keep up with the work of YouTubers. Another implication is that, seeing the success of Obsession and Backroom, major Hollywood studios will now turn to online video sites in search of the next great director. It may even lead studio heads to work on new and original takes on old movies instead of sequels or franchises. Actor Mark Duplass, who plays a scientist in Backroom, said in a video on social media that both films have brought hope to the film industry. “We have creators who are quietly doing their work, putting it online and building their own audience,” he said. Now only those who have money will take notice, as they have seen both the movies do better than expected at the box office.
Producers and agents have long been trying to carve a path from YouTube to Hollywood. Earlier, ticket sales for YouTuber Marc Fischbach’s self-financed film Iron Lung also signaled the success of the model. “This is truly a moment of great cultural change in cinema,” screenwriter Jack Stantz wrote on social media. The arrival of a new generation of young people making YouTube shorts is similar to the entry of music video makers into Hollywood in the 1980s and the Sundance Kids in the 1990s. The success of YouTubers is the first indication of the decline of the old studio system, or evidence of its weakened state, writes The Hollywood Reporter’s Steven Jesic. “YouTube makes creators famous, promotes work and creates a great platform,” he wrote. According to Michael De Luca, co-chairman of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures, producers like Parsons engage directly with their audience from the start, and consumers have a say every step of the way. Therefore, by the time the movie is seen in theatres, it has gone through at least one billion audience tests or experimental screenings.