'Backrooms' Director Kane Parsons Rejects Horror Label at Zurich Summit

Kane Parsons, the 20-something director of the $400 million-grossing A24 hit "Backrooms," told industry insiders at the Zurich Summit on Saturday that he never directed the film as a "horror film." His feature, adapted from his own YouTube analog web series, and Curry Barker's "Obsession" have dominated industry conversation for the past three months — two breakout films from YouTube-native directors that beat box-office expectations and pulled Gen Z audiences back into cinemas.

"I don't view it as a horror project," Parsons said. "I think that's just naturally in the path of least resistance from a marketing perspective and is what seems comfortable to people as a framing device."

He's already at work on the sequel, and he says his bargaining position has changed. "I think I have more creative control now with future projects," he said. "So those sort of structures will probably be a little less forceful, I think, in the future."

What does this change for Hollywood?

The strongest claim came from Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, who put the two films in historical company. He compared the "Obsession" and "Backrooms" summer to the industry shift triggered by Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider" in the 1970s.

"'Easy Rider' came out in the middle of the Vietnam War, in the middle of a right-wing presidency," Barker said. "It spoke to young people; they responded in huge numbers, and it affected the movies that were gonna be made afterwards."

"I think this is that moment, this summer with 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms,'" he said.

Parsons shared the panel with Barker, Mattel Studios president and chief content officer Robbie Brenner, and Bill Kramer, CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He declined to frame the moment generationally — he didn't want to make it "too much of an age thing" — but noted a clear "appetite" for the theatrical experience right now.

His theory of the films' appeal is structural. Audiences, he said, see "Backrooms" as a "pre-existing but decentralized IP presence online," and "people are looking for that newness, that sort of detachment from more cyclical cultural icons that keep eating themselves."

YouTube fandoms now travel to cinemas

Kramer called "Backrooms" the first proven case of a fandom migrating from YouTube to the big screen. "It was the first time that we saw [that]," he said.

"Young people want to go back to movie theaters," Kramer added. "Fandoms shift; theatrical can inform a fandom, YouTube can inform a theatrical fandom. It's all connected in a way that I don't think we thought was possible. And that, for me, was a big takeaway of this summer."

That takeaway, Kramer said, "gives me great hope for the film industry because we're seeing young people come back to the movies, and that's really key."

When Parsons suggested people his age "gravitate toward short-form material," Kramer pushed back, calling the framing "reductive." Parsons agreed on the spot: "Yes, it is reductive."

Parsons went further, arguing the short-form habit is imposed rather than chosen. "I feel like the sentiment is more that this is weaponized," he said. "This algorithmically incentivized [reality] is not really something I think most people enjoy about their own wiring. They don't love that their attention spans are being sucked into the spiral of mostly consuming stuff that is that short. Going into a closed room without outsider interference […] lowers the tempo in a way that is refreshing."

'Barbie 2'? Not yet

Brenner, asked on the same panel about a sequel to Greta Gerwig's "Barbie," kept her answer open. "Look, we all wanna have a 'Barbie' sequel. I mean, who doesn't wanna see the sequel to 'Barbie'? And I'm sure at some point in time there will be one. We all want it to happen. We'll see."

Kramer also confirmed the Academy's multi-year agreement giving YouTube exclusive global rights to stream the Oscars live and free worldwide, starting in 2029 and running through 2033. "A very good deal," he said. "We are a nonprofit, so this also allows us to sustain our great work."

With a "Backrooms" sequel in development and the Academy betting its broadcast future on the platform that launched Parsons' career, the line between online fandom and theatrical cinema is now a two-way street — and the studios know it.