FRIDAY AM UPDATE AFTER EXCLUSIVE: A24’s Backrooms is higher in its Thursday night previews with $10.4M, a figure that’s close to another beloved fan IP-turned-big-screen pic, Five Nights at Freddy’s ($10.3M in 2023). Blumhouse-Atomic Monster was a producer on that genre title. It’s also a record for A24, beating Civil War‘s $2.9M previews in 2024.
Screen Engine/Rentrak exits show a massive turnout by the 18-24 bunch at 43%. The 18-34 combined was 76%. The inclination is to shoot from the hip and say this movie will open to $80M+, but heck, even if it’s $60M, that’s pretty damn good. I mean, three weeks ago the outlook on early tracking was $20M for the Kane Parsons-directed movie.
As we told you earlier this week, Backrooms also will be the best opening ever for A24 at the domestic box office, beating 2024’s Civil War ($25.5M).
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Thursday night PostTrak exits — reminding you that Thursday night always is fan-filled, so the scores tend to be higher versus before the audience expands throughout the weekend — show a 52% definite recommend and 3 stars, with a 67% positive. Guys-to-women ratio was 60%-40%. Men over 25 leading at 31%, men under 25 at 29%, women under 25 at 26%, and women over 25 at 14%. Women under 25 gave the first-person, videogame-like feature its best scores at 75% positive and a 60% definite recommend. This movie wasn’t for anyone over 35 last night: They only showed up at 12%!
As a refresher, the 3Arts Entertainment-repped Parsons (online handle: Kane Pixel), first launched the early iteration of Backrooms on 4chan which then spread on Reddit when was 16. The IP morphed into Roblox and Minecraft games and was then transformed into a found-footage YouTube series created via Blender and Unreal Engine, which amassed north of 190 million views. Oscar nominees Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve star alongside Mark Duplass.
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Also, in continuing YouTube creator news, Curry Barker’s Obsession beat Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu again in its weekdays with a Thursday estimated win of $4.8M to $3.4M.
Here’s how the week went down:
1) Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (Dis) 4,300 theaters, Wk $112.3M/Wk 1
2) Obsession (Foc) 2,655 theaters, Wk $47.9M (+58%)/Total $78.3M/Wk 2
3) Michael (LG) 3,306 theaters, Wk $33.9M (-10%), Total $328.1M/Wk 5
4) The Devils Wears Prada 2 (Dis) 3,300 theaters, Wk $19.9M (-22%), Total $203.4M/Wk 4
5) The Sheep Detectives (Amz) 3,207 theaters, Wk $15.3M (+9%), Total $49.9M/Wk 3
6) Passenger (Par) 2,534 theaters, Wk 12.6M/Wk 1
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Chiwetel Ejiofor in ‘Backrooms’
A24
EXCLUSIVE: There’s a lot of cash getting stuffed in those Backrooms. The Kane Parsons feature take of his digital IP is racking up $9M in previews, which began at 4PM.
We told you presales were at a crazy blockbuster level, around Scream 7‘s three months ago. Well, guess what? The previews here for A24’s Backrooms are ahead of Scream 7‘s $7.8M, as well as 2023’s John Wick: Chapter 4 ($8.9M) and not far from Eternals ($9.5M) and Five Night’s at Freddy’s ($10.3M), the latter being another fervent fan-driven property. The opening range for those movies is between $63.6M and $80M, and many distribution sources now are giddy that this R-rated genre movie easily will blow past its most recent forecast of $40M-$45M. Again, it’s all about how front-loaded this is. As of tracking this AM, Backrooms was hot with men and women under 25 and not far from the first choice for Final Destination: Bloodlines ($51.6M opening).
Success has many fathers, and those are Atomic Monster-Blumhouse, 21 Laps, Odd Fellow and Chernin Entertainment on Parsons’ feature directorial debut. The latter co-financed this pic for under $10M with A24. From the sounds of it, Backrooms looks to be in the black by the end of the weekend.
Currently, critics are outweighing audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% to 74%, for this movie which follows a therapist (Sentimental Value Oscar nominee Renate Reinsve) who goes looking for patient (12 Years a Slave Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor) in his desolate furniture store. An freakish alternate universe is found within.
From left: Michael Johnston, Megan Lawless in Cooper Tomlinson in ‘Obsession’
Focus Features/Everett Collection
In another rally for movies from YouTube creators, Curry Barker’s Obsession from Focus Features and Blumhouse/Atomic Monster beat Disney/Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu on Wednesday, $5.6M to $4.1M. Running cume for Obsession stands at $73.5M to Mando and Baby Yoda’s $108.8M. Obsession is now the No. 1 movie for the week in some prolific theaters including AMC Empire in Times Square and Regal Union Square in NYC. The question now is how hard will Mandalorian and Grogu fall with a double feature of Obsession and Backrooms on marquees?