Logo text

Kane Parsons is the new king of the box office with Backrooms. His $10 million adaptation of his viral YouTube short film series is landing the biggest opening in A24 history, with $81.4 million.

The move makes Parsons, 20, the youngest filmmaker in history to top the domestic box office, smashing the record set in 2012 by Josh Trank, who was 27 when his found footage superhero movie Chronicle opened to No. 1.

Co-financed and produced by Chernin Entertainment, Backrooms focuses on a failed architect (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who stumbles across an endless series of rooms in the furniture store he manages. Around 86 percent of the audience is younger than 35 and more than half are under 25. The young filmmaker teamed with steady hands, including Blumhouse-Atomic Monster and 21 Laps to make the movie.

The ascension of Parsons comes just two weeks after fellow YouTuber Curry Barker became the hottest 20-something filmmaker in Hollywood thanks to surprise hit Obsession. The $750,000 feature, now in its third week, is making history as the first film outside of Christmas since 1982’s E.T.: The Extraterrestrial to have second and third weekends bigger than its first.

Obsession is up 10 percent from last weekend, with an estimated $26.4 million. That’s after defying box office gravity last weekend, earning an unheard of 39 percent more in its second outing than its first. It is projected to end the weekend with $104.7 million domestically to become Focus’ top-grossing movie of all time in North America. Globally, it stands at $148 million.

In its wake, Barker has been fielding intense attention from Hollywood for his next original feature, even as he works on the edit of his already-shot movie, Anything But Ghosts, and contemplates a Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot for A24. Indie outfit Tea Shop made Obsession, with Blumhouse-Atomic Monster boarding a few months after the movie sold to Focus out of the Toronto International Film Festival.

It all feels like a passing-of-the-guard moment, with Parsons’ and Barker’s movies overshadowing the ultimate establishment franchise, Star Wars.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu is looking to bring in around $24 million in its second weekend, a drop of around 70 percent for a third place finish. It has already grossed $171 million globally, off a relatively trim (for Star Wars standards) net budget of $165 million. Disney insiders have maintained that the pinwheel effect the movie has on merch, parks and Disney+ is part of its calculus for the movie beyond box office.

Of new offerings, comic Nate Bargatze’s first-ever movie, The Breadwinner, is aiming for a fifth place finish behind Michael with $7.5 million for the weekend. He stars opposite Mandy Moore as a hapless husband charged with running their household and caring for their children while his wife is away. It failed to clean up with critics, landing a 32 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though audiences have been kinder, granting it an 88 percent as well as an A- Cinemascore. Studio Sony hopes that word of mouth will allow it to have legs.

And Focus’ World War II drama Pressure, starring Brendan Fraser and Andrew Scott, is aiming for $5.7 million for seventh place behind holdover The Devil Wears Prada 2.

May 31 at 8:14 a.m.: Updated with Sunday grosses.

A previous version incorrectly that ET’s third weekend did not outgross its second. When in fact it went up.