17-year-old Kane Parsons hit the jackpot. The YouTube director of short films has been hired by A24 to helm a feature-length version of his mysterious short “The Backrooms.” Roberto Patino (DMZ) will write the screenplay.
What a win for kids making home movies on YouTube. Of course, you’ll have some saying that a teenager really shouldn’t be at the helm of a multi-million dollar picture, responsible for hundreds of crew. My best guess is that, at a minimum, Parsons will have a few producers glued to his side at all times during production.
Over the last year, Parsons has become a YouTube sensation following the viral success of “The Backrooms.” It’s the first in a series of found-footage horror videos which have thus far garnered him nearly 100 million views on the platform.
You can check out Parson’s YouTube Channel here. I can’t say I’m familiar with his stuff, but I’ll be taking a look at some of these shorts later today.
Between this and YouTube stars RackaRacka making one of the best movies of this past January’s edition of Sundance (“Talk to Me”), you’re going to be seeing more and more online creators breaking into traditional media.
If you remember, back in 2016 David Sandberg, who was 35 not 17, got the same sort of deal with his short which turned out to be the very underrated creeper “Lights Out.” He went on to direct “Shazam!” which is still one of the better DCEU movies out there.
Now it looks like Bradford Young — who took a sabbatical from movies these last seven or eight years — has attached to the project as DP. This is a welcome surprise.