Suddenly, movie theaters are cool again, and we’re not talking about the kind of cool where your grandma thinks they’re cool because she finally figured out how to use the ticket-buying app on her phone 📱. Nope, we’re talking about actual, genuine, youthful coolness, where kids are willing to put down their Fortnite controllers and leave their basement dungeons to watch some scary movies on the big screen 🎥. And the best part? These movies are low-budget, made by young directors who probably still live in their parents’ basements, but are somehow managing to make more money than the big-shot franchise movies 🤑.
Theaters are buzzing with two different original horror movies that are making all the right noises: A24’s Backrooms and Focus’ Obsession. Both films had a huge weekend at the box office, with Backrooms becoming A24’s biggest opening ever and setting a record for the biggest debut for an original horror movie ever 🤯. Its director, Kane Parsons, is only 20 years old, making him the youngest director in history with a #1 box office hit 🎉. We’re not sure what’s more impressive, the fact that he’s only 20 or that he’s already making more money than most of us will ever see in our lifetimes 🤑.
Meanwhile, Obsession, another low-budget horror movie, continues to defy the traditional box office trends and increased its ticket sales for the third straight weekend 📈. Fueled by great word of mouth among young audiences, the film went from a $17.1 million opening two weekends ago, to $23.9 million last weekend to $26.4 this weekend — even as it was competing for the same audience with Backrooms 🤝. The film has already earned well over $100 million in U.S. theaters alone, making it the biggest Focus Features release ever 🎊.
And the most surprising part of this success is that these little horror movies, made on tiny budgets by young directors who are probably still in film school, trounced what most experts predicted would be one of the biggest hits of the summer: The Mandalorian and Grogu, the first new Star Wars movie in multiplexes in seven years 🚀. In its second weekend of release, The Mandalorian and Grogu earned an estimated $25 million in domestic theaters — meaning it came in third place behind Backrooms and Obsession 🏆. It had a larger drop, percentage-wise, than Solo: A Star Wars Story, and potentially remains on track to become the lowest-grossing Disney Star Wars movie to date 🤔.
For many years, Hollywood conventional wisdom (especially since Covid) held that the only films that made money in theaters anymore were big “event films” — new installments of well-established franchises with large fanbases 🤩. This weekend’s box-office totals completely upend that belief 🤯. The “event” in theaters last weekend was two different little horror movies, driving in tons of young audiences — the same audience that supposedly doesn’t care about theaters or seeing things on a big screen 📺. Maybe movie theaters aren’t so doomed after all 🎥. (Star Wars might actually be in a little trouble, though 🚨).
So, what’s the moral of the story? Well, it’s simple: if you’re a young, aspiring filmmaker with a great idea for a horror movie, don’t be afraid to take the leap and make it happen 🎬. And if you’re a big-shot franchise movie, don’t get too comfortable, because the kids these days are all about that low-budget, high-scaries life 🤪.
Finn McFrame, celebrated satirical mastermind and self-proclaimed “Emperor of Irony,” started his illustrious career as a cinematographer, where his expertise in capturing every single frame of a squirrel stealing a baguette earned him accolades at obscure film festivals.
Born in the glamorous town of Boring, Oregon, Finn grew up with dreams of being a Hollywood director until he realized that satire, not cinema, was his true calling—or at least the one that let him sleep until noon.
Finn McFrame: changing the world, one satirical lens flare at a time.
