If you are looking for a paradigm shift in Hollywood, this weekend’s box office may be it. A24/Chernin’s “Backrooms” and Focus Features’ “Obsession,” two buzzy non-franchise horror films directed by YouTube-trained Gen Z filmmakers Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, are reigning atop the box office while the former box office titan “Star Wars” is seeing a steep 69% second weekend drop for its latest film “The Mandalorian and Grogu.”
“Backrooms” earned an excellent $38.4 million opening day from 3,442 locations, and is now projected by industry estimates for a stunning $90 million opening weekend that ranks as the third highest domestic opening ever for a horror film behind the $117 million opening of “It” in 2017 and the $91 million of “It: Chapter Two” in 2019.
It is also more than triple the highest opening weekend ever for A24, blasting past the previous record of $25.5 million set by “Civil War” in 2024. Presales and interest in the film skyrocketed over the past week, especially after critics gave the film strong reviews with an 90% Rotten Tomatoes score.
The only slight blemish against “Backrooms” is that audiences weren’t quite as enthusiastic as critics, giving the film a B- on CinemaScore and a 74% audience RT score. But even if that means “Backrooms” ends up being more frontloaded than “Obsession,” this opening weekend is enough to make this a massive win for A24 and its producers, which include Peter Chernin’s North Road Films, Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and James Wan’s Atomic Monster, the latter of which is now merged with “Obsession” co-producer Blumhouse.
And speaking of “Obsession,” the arrival of “Backrooms” has done absolutely nothing to halt its historic box office run as it has increased its weekend grosses yet again by 19% to $28 million this weekend, blasting past $100 million in domestic grosses. With this strong of a hold against a direct horror competitor — possibly with fans of the genre seeing both “Obsession” and “Backrooms” as a double feature — there is nothing stopping Curry Barker’s film from passing $200 million domestic and passing recent horror hits like “Weapons” and “Final Destination: Bloodlines.”
And then there’s “Mandalorian and Grogu” in the No. 3 spot with an industry estimated $24 million second weekend, a staggering 70% drop from its $81.7 3-day Memorial Day weekend opening. It was expected that the feature follow-up to the hit Disney+ series could be a strong family play, and theatrical sources say that has been the case. But general audience turnout, particularly among the under-30 crowd, is sagging due to the competition from the two horror films conquering the marketplace.
More to come…