EXCLUSIVE: There’s a lot of cash getting stuffed in those Backrooms. The A24 Kane Parsons feature take of his digital IP is racking up $9M in previews which began at 4PM.
We told you presales were at a crazy blockbuster level, around Scream 7‘s. Well, guess what? The previews here for Backrooms are ahead of Scream 7‘s $7.8M, as well as John Wick: Chapter 4 ($8.9M) and not far from Eternals ($9.5M) and Five Night’s at Freddy’s ($10.3M); the latter another fervent fan-driven property. The opening range for those movies are between $63.6M and $80M, and many distribution sources are now giddy that this R-rated genre movie will easily blow past its most recent forecast of $40M-$45M. Again, it’s all about how front-loaded this is. As of tracking this AM, Backrooms was hot with men and women under 25 and not far from the first choice for Final Destination: Bloodlines ($51.6M opening).
Success has many fathers and those are Atomic Monster-Blumhouse, 21 Laps, Odd Fellow and Chernin Entertainment on Parsons’ feature directorial debut. The latter co-financed this pic for under $10M with A24. From the sounds of it, Backrooms looks to be in the black by the end of the weekend.
Currently, critics are outweighing audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% to 74%, for this movie which follows a therapist (Oscar nominee Renate Reinsve) who goes looking for patient (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in his desolate furniture store. An alter, freakish universe is found within.
OBSESSION, from left: Michael Johnston, Megan Lawless, Cooper Tomlinson, 2025. © Focus Features /Courtesy Everett Collection
In another rally for movies from YouTube creators, Curry Barker’s Obsession from Focus Features and Blumhouse/Atomic Monster beat Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Mandaorian and Grogu on Wednesday, $5.6M to $4.1M. Running cume for Obsession stands at $73.5M to Mando and Baby Yoda’s $108.8M. Obsession is now the No. 1 movie for the week in some prolific theaters including AMC Empire in Times Square and Regal Union Square in NYC.
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