This 20-Year-Old Started Making YouTube Videos in High School — His First Movie Made $118 Million Over the Weekend

Kane Parsons spent his high school years making horror videos on YouTube. This weekend, the 20-year-old became the youngest filmmaker in U.S. history to top the box office.

“Backrooms”opened with $81.5 million domestically and $118 million globally, according to the New York Times. The horror movie cost $10 million to make and beat out “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which has a budget of $165 million. The concept began as a creepy 4chan photo in 2019 and became a YouTube series.

The No. 2 film this weekend, “Obsession” has a similar origin story. It’s the brainchild of 26-year-old film-school dropout Curry Barker, who built his audience on TikTok and YouTube before turning a $750,000 production into a $105 million hit.

These new kinds of box office wins signal a major disruption in Hollywood. Blockbusters typically come from comic books, bestsellers, or legacy IP — these movies come from creators who built audiences online before studios even knew their names.