“Backrooms” director Kane Parsons is not interested in moving into the IP worlds of “Star Wars” or “Star Trek,” responding to one recent question about the potential allure of those franchises with a blunt, “No.”
The 20-year-old filmmaker appeared as a guest on Thursday’s episode of “The Town with Matt Belloni” podcast, where he was asked about his career in the wake of the immense financial and critical success of his feature-length directorial debut with A24. While speaking with Puck’s Matthew Belloni, Parsons was asked if he would ever be curious to take on a major franchise project like a “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” movie.
“No,” Parsons answered. “I’m not too interested in IP work. I pretty much entirely want to focus on original projects. Just because, I do this because it’s my way of processing life, as is art, and I typically find needing to step into someone else’s view of life tends to just kind of damage the initial point for me.”
“I think barring like one or two things from my personal childhood, stuff from the early 2000s, like one or two things really, without naming them out loud,” the 20-year-old filmmaker added. “The only ones I would look at are ones that have shaped my own experience of life so much that I feel like I have something to do with that conversation in the first place.”
While Parsons declined to specify what those “one or two” properties are, he did tease to Belloni that “stuff may already be moving a little bit.”
In the same interview, Parsons pushed back against a report earlier this week that he had begun looking for a screenwriter to partner with on a “Backrooms” sequel: “I’m not sure where that got out … That seems more like a hallucinated [thing].”
There is, of course, interest in a “Backrooms” sequel. The film, which is based on Parsons’ web series and a creepypasta of the same name, has already grossed nearly $100 million at the domestic box office alone in its first week. As such, it already ranks as the biggest opening and domestic box office performance in A24’s studio history.
The film’s success has also made Parsons the youngest filmmaker to ever claim the No. 1 spot at the American box office.
