The YouTube-to-Hollywood pipeline is accelerating. This weekend's two biggest box office hits are both directed by creators who built audiences online.
Kane Parsons has a major success on his hands. His feature film Backrooms—a full-length expansion of his found-footage YouTube series about a mysterious office space—opened with $38 million Friday and is tracking for an $80-90 million domestic opening weekend. For indie studio A24, that breaks records. Their previous record was Civil War at $25.7 million.
The number-two film is performing unexpectedly.
Curry Barker's Obsession—a horror film that premiered on YouTube as the hourlong found-footage piece Milk & Serial in 2024—is experiencing strong word-of-mouth momentum. The film made $8 million on Friday with a projected $28.5 million weekend total, and it is growing in its third weekend. Most wide releases drop 50-70 percent in their second weekend. Obsession is up 19 percent. According to the Hollywood Reporter, it is the first non-Christmas film since 1982 to grow on both its second and third weekends.
The pattern reflects a real advantage. A Rutgers Cinema expert told TechCrunch that what distinguishes Parsons, Barker, and fellow YouTube breakout Markiplier (whose video game adaptation Iron Lung grossed nearly $41 million) is simple: longevity. These creators have spent years building dedicated audiences on YouTube who follow them to theatrical releases. Parsons is 20, Barker is 26, but both have years of platform experience behind them.
The box office results suggest YouTube creators are now a reliable pipeline for theatrical success.
