This past weekend at the box office, we saw an indie horror movie and an A24 horror movie, i.e., both beat a Star Wars movie at the box office. Each of them was directed by a young up-and-comer, and each of them also got their start on YouTube.
For the first time since before COVID, it feels like there’s a buzz across Los Angeles, as executives and studio heads log back on to look at the numbers after a long weekend and enter their Monday morning meetings.
But what lessons should these people in power have learned from this past weekend? And will they change the way we see the market in Hollywood right now?
Let’s dive in.
1. Traditional Gatekeeping is Dead
For decades, the standard advice given to aspiring filmmakers was to save up, move to Los Angeles, work as a production assistant, and pray that a mid-level producer reads your script or watches the short film you made and loves it.
This weekend proved that is pretty much the past.
I still think you can break in that way; I think that way will never die, but this new generation is not necessarily dependent on it.
Kane Parsons was a 16-year-old middle schooler learning VFX via free online tutorials when he posted his viral short The Backrooms to his YouTube channel, Kane Pixels.
Now, at just 20 years old, his feature adaptation with A24 pulled in an astronomical $81.5 million opening weekend.
Meanwhile, 26-year-old Curry Barker honed his hyper-specific blend of psychological tension and dark comedy on his sketch comedy channel that’s a bad idea.
When he couldn’t get traditional distribution for his early work, he just kept uploading.
His micro-budget feature debut, Obsession, was snapped up by Focus Features for $15 million at TIFF. In its third weekend, it didn’t suffer the usual steep horror drop; instead, it climbed another 10% to pocket $26.4 million, officially crossing the $100 million domestic mark.
These are massive wins, and I know execs are taking notice.
What aspiring filmmakers should take away is that if you are waiting around for someone to greenlight your career, you’re losing time.
The pipeline can be as simple as learning and finding your audience on YouTube.
As the old movie line goes, if you build it, the execs will come and will pay you for your brilliant work.
So get shooting.
‘Obsession’ Credit: Focus Features
2. Gen Z Desperately Wants Original Concepts
If you look at the executive freak-out over the last few years, the diagnosis was always that “young people just don’t go to the movies anymore.”
It turns out they do.
But they don’t want to see another IP sequel or something they’ve consumed elsewhere. They want unpredictable, original storytelling.
According to exit data, a staggering 86% of Backrooms’ audience was under 35.
They showed up because they were interested in a story that spoke to them and that started online, where they got invested in the kinds of worlds they knew Parsons could deliver.
The industry is currently facing massive challenges in bringing younger audiences to theaters, but Barker and Parsons bypassed this by utilizing the exact spaces where Gen Z already lives.
When you cultivate an online community, that fanbase operates with a sense of ownership. That word of mouth is carrying both film and filmmakers to unprecedented heights.
3. High-Concept Hooks and Lean Budgets
This is where I think our audience can mimic the success and find their own voices in all of this chaos and industry change.
Both these successful movies proved you don’t need a massive VFX house or an army of producers to scare people.
You just need a hook that draws people in and shows them something they find relatable.
Horror has always been the ultimate Trojan Horse for independent filmmakers looking to break into the industry, but what we’re seeing now is a complete structural shift.
Low-budget filmmaking is a competitive advantage that allows for immense creative freedom and massive profit margins.
If you can prove your concept works and it’s scary, you have the attention of all of Hollywood.
‘The Backrooms’ Credit: A24
The Takeaway for Executives
Please do not read this and learn that just small horror works and you should pluck random people off YouTube to make it.
Learn that people want originality and thinking outside the box. This is not just a horror play; it’s a plea for audiences to make movies that feel relevant to them or feel totally new.
The success of Backrooms and Obsession came about from directors who spent years building their visual style, understanding pacing, editing their own footage, and learning how to hook an audience within the first five seconds of a video.
It may seem like they’re overnight successes, but they’re really just people who have been working hard and honing their craft.
Summing It All Up
If you’re a filmmaker sitting at home wondering how to make the next leap, look at what Curry Barker and Kane Parsons did.
Put the work in both on the spec script level and in proving your worth behind the camera.
Find a high-concept hook, grab any camera, and make something so undeniably good that the industry has no choice but to hunt you down.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
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