Kane Parsons, a 20-year-old filmmaker who started with a viral YouTube short, has achieved massive success with his feature film Backrooms, which has grossed $130 million worldwide. The film's triumph, backed by A24, signals a shift in Hollywood where digital creators are bypassing traditional pathways to produce culturally resonant content for young audiences, often leveraging advanced technology and AI tools.
Four years ago, while most 16-year-old boys were worrying about passing their driving tests, Kane Parsons was holed up in his bedroom creating a terrifying nine-minute film about a man trapped in a nightmarish labyrinth of endless abandoned rooms.
Parsons, a self-professed loner who started making YouTube content after being diagnosed with severe childhood arthritis at 13, posted the film on YouTube where it went viral, racking up 10 million hits in just two weeks. Within days of his 17th birthday, the teenage filmmaker had landed a Hollywood agent.
Soon afterwards came a deal with prestigious studio A24, the powerhouse behind Oscar-winning hits including Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All At Once, which handed Parsons an $8 million budget to transform his 'bedroom movie' into a full-scale Hollywood film. Now, aged 20 and still unable to legally drink alcohol in his home state of California, Parsons is the toast of Hollywood because his movie Backrooms topped the US box office.
Recreating the original YouTube movie's garish mustard-yellow rooms bathed in buzzing fluorescent lights, the film has brought in a staggering $130 million globally since opening last weekend, and has topped British charts, too. Backrooms even managed to attract British Oscar-winner Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave) for a fraction of his normal salary because he was so keen to work with the teenage YouTube sensation.
Parsons's creation is crushing traditional studio releases like the latest Star Wars offering, The Mandalorian And Grogu - and let's see how it fares against He-Man, the $200 million superhero blockbuster starring Nicholas Galitzine, which opens this weekend. But Parsons is not the only fresh-faced YouTuber to storm the gates of Hollywood. One Tinsel Town executive with a major studio told The Mail on Sunday: 'There hasn't been a revolution like this in Hollywood since talkies replaced silent movies.
You used to have to go through the system and work your way up before any studio would trust you to make a film.
'These kids are coming out of their bedrooms and making movies, which are getting young audiences, particularly young men, back into movie theatres in numbers we've not seen in decades. ' Indeed, the number two film at the global box office is Obsession, a horror film made for $750,000 by 26-year-old YouTuber Curry Barker. Released on May 15 it has grossed $155 million worldwide.
Earlier this year Mark Fischback, who goes by the YouTube handle 'Markiplier', self-financed the sci-fi horror Iron Lung, which has just crossed the $50 million mark. This bright new order even has a name: Creator-driven cinema. The executive says: 'People in the music business have launched careers off YouTube.
Justin Bieber started off posting music videos online but it's taken the movie business a while to catch up, mostly because it was hard to make good movies on a tiny budget in your bedroom.
'But technology has become so sophisticated and AI tools so good that now any talented kid with a good idea can hit the jackpot. ' The source adds: 'The thing about YouTubers is they are tapping into the insecurities of the post #MeToo generation because they grew up during Covid, suffered through isolation and have the same insecurities and hang-ups as the kids who are going to watch their films.
' Critics have raved about Backrooms, in which Ejiofor plays as a man who discovers a portal in his furniture store into a sinister alternate realm. He then wanders with increasing anxiety and horror through a maze of backrooms that never ends. One critic said: 'The film taps directly into the helplessness and loss of control people felt during Covid. Parsons has captured the psychological unease of an entire generation.
' Last weekend, Parsons became the youngest director in history to top the box office in the US and UK. His own backstory is as remarkable as his newfound success. Born in Petaluma, California, his childhood was cut short at 13 when he was diagnosed with arthritis so severe he was left bedridden. He told the New York Times: 'Arthritis for a 13-year-old didn't make sense'
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