A24’s Backrooms Blazes To $10.4 Million Preview, On Track For An All-Time Record

The internet's favorite liminal nightmare just crashed the real-world box office. A24 and Chernin Entertainment 's 'Backrooms' is off to a monster start, and the numbers are, frankly, wild.

What happened

• Thursday preview screenings pulled in an estimated $10.4 million, per Variety.
• That smashes A24's previous preview record set by 2024's 'Civil War' ($2.9 million in previews; $25.5 million opening weekend).
• Reported production budget: about $10 million. So, before opening day even arrived, the preview gross alone topped the cost of making it. Note: theaters keep a cut and marketing isn't free, but still — that's an eye-popping start.
• It's co-produced by A24 and Chernin Entertainment.
• Feature directorial debut of YouTube filmmaker Kane Parsons, who also appears in the film alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve.

'A24's Backrooms grossed an estimated $10.4M from Thursday preview shows.'

So what is 'Backrooms'?

Parsons blew up online in 2022 with his short 'The Backrooms' — a viral, found-footage creep-out that racked up hundreds of millions of views by turning bland, empty spaces into actual nightmares. The movie scales that vibe up: a dogged investigator finds a hidden doorway under a furniture showroom that drops him into an endless maze of sickly yellow corridors. That queasy, wrongness-of-the-hallway feeling? Two hours of it. Not bad for a movie about, essentially, liminal wallpaper.

Why this is a big deal

Studios keep betrothing themselves to giant IP and ballooning budgets. 'Backrooms' is the opposite — born on the internet, made lean, and now setting company records. It's a proof-of-concept for turning modern web folklore into theatrical events, and the early turnout suggests that pipeline is not just viable, it's lucrative.

If you want more in this lane

If the whole 'isolation + cosmic dread' thing works for you, there are a few adjacent picks worth chasing. Markiplier's 'Iron Lung' goes full claustrophobia-in-a-can. 'Obsession' (from director Curry Barker) has been surging with younger crowds and is reportedly pushing toward $100 million domestic. 'Skinamarink' does micro-budget liminal terror to an almost abstract degree. And if you're in the mood for brain-bending dinner-party paranoia, 'Coherence' still slaps.

One more note

There has been chatter questioning who actually steered the ship on 'Backrooms'; Mark Duplass publicly pushed back on that rumor mill, defending Kane Parsons's authorship. File that under: worth knowing, not worth spiraling about.

Are you into 'Backrooms' and this whole liminal-horror wave, or is it just drywall and dread to you?