Backrooms shocks box office with projected $90 million opening weekend

Kane Parsons’ Backrooms turned a viral internet concept into a rare box-office event, pulling in $38 million domestically on Friday alone from 3,442 theaters and putting A24 on track for an opening weekend of $85 million to $90 million. The scale of the launch far exceeds the studio’s previous record and shows how quickly online-born IP can leap from niche fandom to mainstream ticket sales when the premise, cast and marketing align.

The film had already collected $10.4 million in previews, a record for A24 before Friday’s surge. That early strength shattered expectations that had started near $20 million and then climbed into the $40 million to $50 million range, underscoring how sharply Backrooms outperformed even the most optimistic tracking. For a studio long associated with smaller prestige releases, the result marks a major commercial reset.

Backrooms is adapted from Parsons’ viral YouTube series, a rare case of an internet-native idea making the jump to a wide theatrical rollout. Parsons is 20 years old and is making his feature directing debut, making him A24’s youngest feature director. The movie stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, with Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell in supporting roles. It is distributed by A24 and produced with Chernin Entertainment, 21 Laps Entertainment, Atomic Monster and Phobos, with James Wan, Shawn Levy and Osgood Perkins among the producers.

The opening also rewrote the studio record book. A24’s previous high-water mark belonged to Alex Garland’s Civil War, which opened to $25.7 million in April 2024 and was the studio’s first release to top the North American box office. Backrooms has already more than doubled that figure on Friday alone, putting it on pace to set a new benchmark by a wide margin if the weekend lands near the top end of current estimates.

The performance is more than a single-hit triumph. It suggests Hollywood’s latest hunt for growth may be shifting toward digital communities that already know the brand, the tone and the mythology before a ticket is sold. If Backrooms closes anywhere near $90 million, studios will have a new data point: a viral idea, once treated as internet ephemera, can now anchor a major theatrical opening.