Box Office Report for the Week of May 31

Is the paradigm shift here? Who knows, but the tectonic plates are definitely moving in Hollywood, after a STAR WARS film was beaten by two horror films from burgeoning filmmakers that had their start on YouTube. One is Curry Barker‘s Obsession, whose $750,000 production grossed over $100 million worldwide and rose to 10% this week with a $26.4 million domestic tally. Of course, the film had significant buzz since its premiere at TIFF, but let’s be honest: did you ever expect that a twenty-six-year-old filmmaker would beat the biggest sci-fi franchise in film history?

Better yet, did you also expect that Backrooms, a film made by a twenty-year-old, would be the number one film of the weekend and already make more money than Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu? Because this is what happened with Kane Parsons‘ horror film based on his own series of videos that he created after viewing an image on 4Chan.

While Backrooms had the backing of several prominent filmmakers, including Shawn Levy, Oz Perkins, and James Wan, and Oscar-nominees Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve in front of the camera, one can’t understate how significant a milestone this is, not just for horror movies, but for the cinematic landscape as a whole. On the immediate, the film is already A24’s highest-grossing opening, surpassing the records set by Civil War and Marty Supreme, but Parsons is also the youngest director ever to have a movie hit #1 at the global box office. The film has grossed $81.4 million domestically and $118 million worldwide. It’s insane.

Whether or not it legs out almost doesn’t matter, since the movie has surpassed its $10 million price tag and has already positioned Parsons as one to watch, because his future will be (very) bright, just as Barker’s, who has already completed another movie titled Anything but Ghosts, starring Aaron Paul, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Violet McGraw. He is also tapped to helm a reboot of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for A24, while Parsons has many more projects in the works for the big and small screen.

It’s an exciting time to be alive, and it should hopefully ring big alarm bells in Hollywood that massive IP-driven blockbusters may not be the driving force to convince audiences to return to the movies. IMAX is already responding by allowing Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe to get some of their screens following The Mandalorian and Grogu‘s flop, but is that film a sure bet? While no reviews have been released yet, early reactions have specifically targeted ’80s kids as the film’s target audience. There’s doubt such a movie will appeal to a broad audience, even if it ends up being just as good as the social media chatter has been saying.

So what should Hollywood do? It’s a great question, but one that needs nuance. We first have to see how Masters of the Universe performs, but it’s clear there’s space for both blockbusters and smaller-scale entertainment. IP is not dead. After all, Backrooms is based on an IP, and Toy Story 5 will likely obliterate many box office records for animated productions.

However, there is a shift in audience preference: independent, auteur-driven stories offer unique experiences we haven’t seen on the big screen, while Star Wars and comic-book stories feel stale. It’s an interesting era to ponder, but one thing’s for sure: something is going to shift, just like New Hollywood brought a slew of burgeoning filmmakers to the table, such as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese, who changed the landscape forever…

Here is the full list of the top ten films of the weekend:

1. Backrooms (A24): $81.4M – 3,442 theatres
2. Obsession (Universal): $26.4M (+10%) – 2,781 theatres
3. Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (Disney): $25.0M (-69%) – 4,300 theatres
4. Michael (Lionsgate): $11.7M (-43%) – 3,118 theatres
5. The Breadwinner (Sony): $7.5M – 3,252 theatres
6. The Devil Wears Prada 2 (Disney): $5.9M (-54%) – 2,650 theatres
7. Pressure (Universal): $5.7M – 1,829 theatres
8. The Sheep Detectives (Amazon MGM Studios): $4.6M (-50%) – 2,810 theatres
9. Passenger (Paramount): $2.6M (-70%) – 2,534 theatres
10. Mortal Kombat II (Warner Bros): $2.0M (-67%) – 1,603 theatres

Source: Comscore