'Backrooms' Debuts With A Towering $38M as 'Obsession' Jumps 34% At The Friday Box Office
The current generation of self-trained talent isn’t disrupting the theatrical system; rather, it’s picking up the ball Hollywood dropped to affirm its value.
The 3,442 theaters showing Backrooms yesterday became the, uh, opposite of liminal space, as the A24 chiller debuted with a rousing $38.13 million Friday. Including $10.4 million in Thursday previews, that’s about as much as Mortal Kombat II earned in its entire $38.5 million opening weekend. It’s also the year’s fourth-biggest single-day gross, behind Michael’s $39 million opening day/first Friday and The Super Mario Galaxy’s $48 million Friday and $51 million Saturday totals (following a $34.5 million Wednesday and $24.5 million Thursday pre-weekend debut). In terms of non-sequel horror, it’s just below Universal and Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s $39 million opening day in October 2023. A24’s previous #1 opening weekend was Civil War, which debuted with $25.5 million in April 2024. So… that’s toast.
Backrooms lists Atomic Monster, which is now merged with Blumhouse, as one of its production companies. Moreover, FNAF was a hybrid theaters-plus-Peacock debut. Still, it didn’t have to contend with another youth-skewing chiller, one that lists Blumhouse (now merged with Atomic Monster) among its producers, that is set to earn around 64% more in its third weekend than it did in its opening weekend. But more on Focus Features’ Obsession in a moment. Anyway, Kane Parsons’s theatrical directorial debut, a feature-length adaptation of his own The Backrooms creepypasta YouTube videos, entered multiplexes with sky-high buzz from in-the-know kids and rave reviews (90% and 7.6/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) from the IP-aware and those (like me) who went in comparatively blind. Once again, the critics are so very out of touch with regular moviegoers!