Mark Duplass is defending Backrooms director Kane Parsons in light of social media speculation about the 20-year-old filmmaker and YouTuber’s role on the forthcoming horror movie.
Hitting theaters Friday from A24, Backrooms stars Duplass alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell in the film about a therapist tracking down a missing patient in a bizarre dimension of liminal space. Parsons becomes the studio’s youngest feature director with the project that adapts the YouTube series that he began uploading as a teen in early 2022 and centered on an infinite maze of rooms.
Given that the Backrooms movie counts such established filmmakers as James Wan, Shawn Levy and Osgood Perkins among its producing team, social media users have suggested theories questioning whether Parsons was the primary director on the feature. Such posts have also suggested similar claims about Curry Barker, the 26-year-old filmmaker who helmed Focus Features’ recent breakout horror hit Obsession.
After an X user posted that “we all know Kane Parsons absolutely didn’t direct this movie,” Duplass responded to dismiss the accusation about his Backrooms director.
“Hmmm, with all due respect I don’t remember seeing you on set,” the actor wrote in his post Tuesday. “When I was there, Kane was 100% in control. More so than many directors 3x his age.”
During a recent discussion about Backrooms at CCXP Mexico, Parsons revealed that the film’s team created 30,000 square feet of actual backrooms. He explained that the movie, which counts A24 and Chernin Entertainment as co-financiers, uses the existing series and online lore as a jumping-off point to examine its characters.
“It does take more of a specific approach, where you’re seeing it through the lens of these specific characters — these individuals living these atomized, lonely lives,” Parsons said. “In the film, there is rarely a moment where there’s more than one or two characters on screen at a given time. It’s a pretty lonely film.”
Chiwetel Ejiofor in Backrooms.
A24
Earlier this year, YouTube content creator Markiplier self-distributed his horror movie Iron Lung after numerous studios and distributors had rejected the project. The video game adaptation ended up surpassing $43 million at the global box office, marking an unlikely feat for a self-distributed title.
“There still is a stigma against YouTube,” Markiplier told The Hollywood Reporter at the time of his film’s theatrical release. “It’s not like I’m going to topple the mountain by myself. It has to be toppled and then toppled again, until it becomes normalized. Once it becomes normalized, then it can become boring, and it’s like, ‘Of course a YouTuber can do this,’ and there’s nothing to question about it.”
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