Here’s Dread Central with the “exclusive.” Kane Parsons has officially signed on to direct “Backrooms 2” for A24. An official announcement is “imminent.”
“Backrooms 2” will be Parsons’ next film — he’s not jumping into anything else. Might as well strike while the iron is still hot, I guess. That other “original” project that he’s developing with mentor Osgood Perkins (“Longlegs”) has been put on the backburner, for now.
Regardless, “Backrooms” is the most successful film in A24 history, and it’s not even close. It opened with an $81M weekend and finished its run with nearly $400M worldwide against a $10M budget.
“Backrooms” follows people who become connected to the mysterious Backrooms, an endless alternate space filled with strange environments and terrifying entities. The “Backrooms” cast includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia. Roberto Patino (“DMZ”) wrote the screenplay, while Shawn Levy and James Wan are among the film’s many producers.
I’m sure the phone has been ringing off the hook for Parsons, who has become an overnight sensation in Hollywood — so much so that he and Curry Barker (“Obsession”) have effectively helped open the door for an innumerable number of YouTube creators to make the leap into the film industry.
Parsons recently signed a 3-year deal with A24 worth around $65M. On top of that, he will receive a bonus if he makes two movies within the three-year term of the agreement.
Parsons was just 17 when he was hired by A24 to helm a feature-length version of his YouTube shorts “The Backrooms.” Parsons became a viral sensation with his horror shorts having collectively racked up nearly 200M+ views. What a win for kids making home movies on YouTube.
The film runs 164 minutes. What a stunner this turns out to be. “Possible Love” keeps getting stranger and deeper the longer it goes. And by the end, the film has moved somewhere almost transcendent.