Overview
- Backrooms opened to about $81 million in North America and has reached roughly $118 million worldwide, giving A24 its biggest-ever opening and setting records for an original horror debut and a director's first feature.
- Obsession, directed by YouTuber Curry Barker, earned roughly $27.4 million in its third weekend after being made on a microbudget estimated at $750,000 to $1 million, underscoring unusually high returns on small investments.
- Both low-budget films outperformed or matched several major-studio releases at the North American box office that weekend, indicating a strong audience appetite for indie horror over some tentpole fare.
- The U.S. momentum is carrying into international rollouts with Backrooms scheduled to open in German cinemas on June 18 and Obsession on June 25, extending their box-office runs abroad.
- The wins are accelerating a YouTuber-to-feature pipeline by lifting young creators such as Kane Parsons (Backrooms) and Curry Barker (Obsession) into studio filmmaking and may push studios to pursue more creator-driven, low-cost horror as a profitable complement to big-budget projects.