At Berlinale 2024, Renate Reinsve poses far from the unsettling corridors of Backrooms, which she later joined the cast of. The photo gives a face to the passage of the web myth into the international art-house cinema defended by A24. Credits: Harald Krichel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
At 20, Kane Parsons turns the Backrooms, an internet myth born in 2019, into a cinematic hit. Released in the United States on May 29, 2026, the A24 film posted a massive box-office opening. The director says he wants to extend this universe, though no series or sequel has been officially announced yet.
An Immediate Hit For A Film Born Online
The phenomenon scaled up in a weekend. According to The Associated Press, Backrooms grossed $81.5 million in the U.S. and Canada over three days. The film was then playing in 3,442 theaters. The global total was about $118 million as of May 31, 2026. The agency cites an estimated production budget of $10 million. That report explains the industry’s immediate attention to this horror film born from a web imagination.
This start also places A24 in an unusual spot for its catalog. The studio presents Backrooms as a film directed by Kane Parsons and written by Will Soodik. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve confront a strange door that appeared in the basement of a furniture store. The official A24 page also confirms the association with Chernin Entertainment.
Caution remains necessary about what comes next. In an interview published June 3, 2026 by BFMTV, based on AFP, Parsons mentions both film and television. He sees those formats as possible ways to tell more stories in this universe. That same day, available information did not, however, allow speaking of a commissioned series. Dread Central, citing Deadline, reports only a very early stage around a potential sequel. The outlet mentions the search for a writing collaborator, without public approval.
From 4chan Photo To The Theater Corridor
The Backrooms did not come from a studio screenplay. Their starting point is digital folklore: an image of empty, yellowish, neon-lit hallways posted in 2019 on 4chan. Internet users then amplified it by projecting a very contemporary fear of the banal. The anxiety does not arise from an identified monster. It comes from places too familiar to be reassuring: offices, carpets, anonymous walls, commercial spaces with no exit.
Kane Parsons, known online as Kane Pixels, discovered this imagination at 13. A few years later, in early 2022, he released The Backrooms (Found Footage) on YouTube. The short was made with Blender, a free 3D modeling and animation software. According to BFMTV/AFP, that first video surpassed 20 million views in two weeks.
The speed of the move to Hollywood was due to that proof of audience. In Variety, the producers describe a development accompanied by names already established in genre cinema. James Wan, Michael Clear, Dan Cohen and Kori Adelson are part of that circle. The challenge was not just buying a viral idea. It was necessary to keep the link between a community of fans, an still-teenage creator and an open mythology.
A New Factory For Cultural Mythologies
What Backrooms makes visible goes beyond the success of a young director. Hollywood has long watched YouTube, TikTok and forums as reservoirs of attention. Here, the difference lies in the nature of the material. The Backrooms are less a finished story than a mental environment, recognizable and sufficiently empty to host contradictory narratives.
That plasticity explains A24’s interest, but it also creates a risk. The more a participatory folklore becomes industrial property, the more the question of control hardens. Author, producers and community do not always carry the same story. WIRED recalls that the first short film drew on a collaborative mythology born around a forum image. The film therefore has to give narrative form to a collective fear that thrived because it remained incomplete.
Sequel, Series: What Is Said And What Is Not
The first weekend’s success makes continuation likely, but not yet easy to name. Dread Central, relaying Deadline on June 2, 2026, writes that Parsons would be looking for a writing partner for a sequel. His contract for more Backrooms would remain with A24.
This is where the BFMTV/AFP statement must be read precisely. When Parsons says he does not rule out a TV series, he opens a possibility of form, not an announcement of production. No sequel or series is publicly confirmed at this stage.
This nuance is essential to understand the cultural moment. Backrooms can become a franchise, but its initial appeal comes from a space where everyone could project their own fear. The challenge, for Parsons and A24, will be to extend the corridors without closing them off too quickly.