Two of the biggest movies at the box office have a common denominator.
Powerhouse producers James Wan (known for Saw) and Jason Blum (known for Paranormal Activity) finally teamed up, officially merging their Atomic Monster and Blumhouse production companies into one unified entity in 2024.
Said team-up is the backer of Backrooms and Obsession, which are both playing in theaters at the moment. Hopefully, you’ve seen at least one of them by now…
On Saturday, May 30, both Wan, 49, and Blum, 57, spoke at the Produced By conference, hosted by the Producers Guild of America on the Universal Studios lot.
“To me there’s almost this feeling of the ’70s of like this new generation of young people who are making edgy movies that are connecting in theaters in a crazy way,” Blum said during the opening session, per Variety. “So many young people who didn’t grow up in a time when you couldn’t go to the movies and they haven’t had something for them to get off their iPad and go see the movie. Suddenly they have two movies. Obsession this weekend went up 20% from last weekend. Last weekend it went up 30%.”
And then there’s Backrooms, which is opening this weekend and topping the box office. Wan spoke about its backstory during Saturday’s conference, Variety also noted.
“You just come across things that, as a filmmaker, you look at something and you go, There’s a seed of something really cool about this, even if it’s not viral, but if there’s something special about it, you go, I think the creator of this particular content has what it takes,” Wan said.
He continued, ““That was kind of what happened with us at Atomic Monster early on, like four or five years back, when we came across the viral shorts called ‘Backrooms,’ and we’re like, you know what, this is awesome, we should talk to this guy [Kane Parsons]. He was 16 years old, and on our first Zoom with him, his dad needed to be on the Zoom with him… He’s a really smart kid, really brilliant…”
This story was originally published by Parade on May 31, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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