MOVIE NEWS – Backrooms director Kane Parsons has officially confirmed that he does not see A24’s new horror hit as a one-and-done project. The young filmmaker says the movie is only the first step in a larger story, one he hopes to continue across multiple films and, in his dream scenario, a television series.
Writer and director Kane Parsons made an impressive feature debut with A24’s horror film Backrooms. The movie continues the recent wave of young independent filmmakers turning low-cost genre ideas into box office events, a run that was recently pushed forward by Curry Barker’s Obsession. While Obsession drew attention for the rare feat of increasing its profits in its second week, Backrooms is making history in its own way, bringing in the biggest opening weekend haul in A24 history with an $81 million debut.
That number looks even stronger when placed next to the film’s $10 million budget. With that kind of opening, the obvious question is whether Parsons planned Backrooms as a standalone movie or as the beginning of something larger. His answer is fairly clear: in his mind, this was never meant to stop with one film.
Given that the movie is based on Parsons’ YouTube series of the same name, it is not surprising that the director is already thinking about expanding the story through multiple installments. In an interview with Polygon, Parsons spoke openly about his ambitions for more Backrooms, and about how his original idea for the story was never designed to fit into a single feature. He also explained that the YouTube series had gone as far as it could under the budget and platform limitations he was working with at the time.
“[Sequels are] more than an option – it’s been the intention since 2022. I went as far as I could with the YouTube series. [Making a feature film] became an option – I thought it’d be a much slower road to get to where things are now. This film is the first part in what I would desire to be several narrative steps, in terms of approaching what I consider to be the true heart of the idea. I just don’t think you could get to it in the time you have for a single movie.”
Parsons is not only interested in making another Backrooms movie. He is also interested in television, because a series could give him more room to explore the vast and complicated narrative behind his surreal, otherworldly liminal spaces. A24 has not officially confirmed anything yet, but Parsons has made it clear that an episodic format would be his ideal version of the project, even if he also understands that a production like that would take time.
“A series would be my dream scenario. Personally, I think that’s the most practical way to narratively get what you want. But obviously, a series is a whole thing. So it won’t be immediate, it won’t be ‘snap your fingers, and it’s here.’ And in general, the series, in my mind, is not determined by its genre label. The way I think of it, it is definitely a lot more of an interpersonal sort of drama built on top of a supernatural techno-thriller. That’s more the space I feel comfortable in.”
The remaining question is whether A24 would support more Backrooms, either as another movie or as a television series. Parsons sounds fairly confident on that front, saying that there has never been any pushback when the idea has been discussed internally, and that this was always the plan. Nothing has been formally announced by the studio, but with the film already a major financial success, it feels increasingly difficult to imagine A24 leaving this new horror world alone for long.
The success of Backrooms matters because it sits at the intersection of A24’s prestige-horror identity and a new creator pipeline built from YouTube, internet mythology, and creepypasta culture. Parsons has not simply adapted a known online phenomenon for theaters; he has built a cinematic world that, by his own account, has not yet reached the true heart of the idea. If the box office momentum continues, Backrooms could easily become A24’s next major horror franchise – only this time, the engine is not old studio IP logic, but a strange and unsettling universe born from a YouTube series.
Source: MovieWeb
