'Backrooms’ Director Kane Parsons on Bursting into Hollywood, Internet Fandom, and Old IP

0:04Matt Belloni:This episode of The Town is presented by HBO Max. For your awards consideration, HBO Max presents DTF St. Louis. In this darkly comedic series, a love triangle between three adults experiencing middle-aged malaise leads to one of them ending up dead. Don't miss the series TV Guide is calling transcendent and audacious. DTF St. Louis is streaming on HBO Max. Watch now. This episode is brought to you by Netflix, presenting The Beast and Me. This cat-and-mouse thriller stars Emmy Award winners Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys. The Guardian lauds it top-tier television, and Collider Raves' The Beast and Me will leave you on the edge of your seat with powerhouse performances from both Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys.

0:45Matt Belloni:The Wall Street Journal hails it one of the best TV shows of the year. For your Emmy Awards consideration in all categories, including Outstanding Limited Series. It is Thursday, June 4th. There are success stories in Hollywood, and then there are game-changing success stories, the kind that are bigger than just one project. Last weekend, Kane Parsons, who's 20 years old, became the youngest filmmaker ever to open a movie at number one when backrooms grossed$81 million domestic and$118 million worldwide. The psychological suspense thriller, based on a 4chan meme and a series of YouTube videos made by Parsons on his computer, were produced for just$10 million and released by A24, biggest opening ever.

1:26Matt Belloni:That, along with the success of Obsession, another young YouTuber named Curry Barker directed that one. It's got people around town heralding a new renaissance of digital native filmmakers and original material. Lots of talk in the media about this, including Lucas and I on Monday. You can find that episode. But I wanted to hear what Kane himself thinks about all this. Must be crazy for a guy that young to suddenly be the toast of the town. Or is it? What kind of relationship with the business of Hollywood are these YouTube filmmakers going to actually have when at the end of the day, they kind of don't need the traditional entertainment business.

1:59Matt Belloni:Or do they? Kane Parsons will now have any opportunity he could ever want. So what will he do with that newfound clout? That's today's episode. It's Kane Parsons, the youngest blockbuster director ever, and Hollywood's relationship with the new generation of YouTube filmmakers. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town.

2:21Matt Belloni:okay we are here with kane parsons filmmaker king of hollywood any other titles you would like right now hey matt hey thanks for having me how are you doing how are you good how has this past week been it's been uh interesting it's actually i think more than anything just kind of been surprisingly relaxing given how it's been such a crunch leading up to like the release of the film and the press tour and everything, just having it be a hard cutoff right pretty much on release day was actually quite nice, I'd say. So it feels nice. I want to start with going back to you're 16 years old. You're making these videos.

3:02Matt Belloni:You get a message from Hollywood people interested in talking to you. Were you excited or were you like, oh, what do they want? It was excitement wrapped in pretty extreme skepticism. Sure. I think, you know, it was sort of a ballooning effect where without naming like names, like the first people who reached out were probably not the most Hollywood people you could think of. And but it did kind of creep over the next week or so and kind of like ping pong its way up into a territory where I started recognizing names and started recognizing companies. And, you know, with that creep, like, you know, the people I was speaking to, it was always that there was a decent level of genuine interest in the idea.

3:45And I was very creatively committed to backrooms at that time. And I mean, still I am. But like right then I was like, you know, very worth exploring. But I've grown up seeing IP get sort of torn to shreds when you bring in a writer who doesn't know the material. And when an audience kind of gets, I guess, disillusioned with the growth of a project. So I was just trying to be sensitive to that and sensitive to my own sort of authorship of the project. So I think it was paranoia, but generally, you know, it did work out.

4:16Matt Belloni:Why do you think, other than the fact that this was a very clear artistic vision from you, what about this process with the producers and the studio worked best? See, I do personally have a lot of gratitude for the ways in which they did lean into and support the ways I like to, you know, conduct my pipeline on my own terms, on my own time. You know, prepping the script was largely, you know, it was a collaboration between myself and Will Sudik, the writer, where, you know, I had the world information. And so I was able to calibrate a lot. And we had like a general outline. Like we blocked out the story before he went and wrote it.

4:58But once we were actually getting into prep, I was just using Blender to previs and do lookbooks for everything and be really, really specific about what I wanted the people who were on board this project to be seeing and thinking about and considering while we're going day by day. So I think the openness around kind of going with the flow, whatever that means, with my Blender shenanigans and previs work was pretty fun. um but i i you know i i think one thing that we'll say well i'm sure i'll caveat a few times throughout this conversation is uh i haven't been doing this long enough to identify some of these micro patterns and some of these trends that that are maybe a little hidden especially when we're talking about stuff that happened when i was 16 so i'm able to look back at it and try my best to analyze it with a critical eye but um but i do wonder what'll come from a few more years of being able to reflect and compare experiences a bit.

5:55Matt Belloni:Sure. And I imagine you're meeting with these filmmakers like James Wan and experienced producers, Dan Cohen, you know, these guys. Did they, did they, did James Wan give you any particular advice when you started on the path? James has been a great friend, I would say in like recent months near like the end of, near post-production. Generally speaking, there was, it was a pretty like, it was a pretty lean uh team i would say leading up to like being in prep for all of those years um where i didn't really get a chance to meet james properly um like i ran into him a couple times over over the years but i guess i think what i appreciate is that when when he did come into the project in a more you know significant way it was it was uh in the form of time-coded notes that were literally just edit notes like like no english words to it it was literally just like transposing a few numbers around on the edit timeline.

6:53And, you know, I was grateful for those. Those all worked. So he's quite surgical, I found, in the way he works.

6:58Matt Belloni:How much do you then, when you first started and now, how much do you even follow the business, the business of Hollywood? Not much currently. I think that's something that can come with time, and I'm sure I'll pick up a lot through osmosis, but to try to, you know. But you said there were names that you recognized. Like you had a passing knowledge of just who the players were. Yeah, loosely, loosely, very loosely. I had heard these names, but I was not like, not to say I don't, I love film and the whole craft and medium of film, but I would say that I haven't spent the hours thus far being a proper historian and a proper buff when it comes to the growing and evolving culture of it in specific terms.

7:43It's a little more abstract in my mind, but I think with time grows specificity and grows more intrigue. So I'm trying to get my head around it.

7:52Matt Belloni:Well, I ask only because it gets to this question of what a filmmaker and a talent like you wants out of the traditional entertainment business, Hollywood used to be, you needed the gatekeepers to give you a career and to let you make your art. And then the gates came down, but you still needed the industry to let people know about your art, to find an audience. Now you don't need any of that. So what does a filmmaker like you get out of Hollywood? Is it meaningful to you that this movie is grossing what it's grossing? Is it just another thing you're doing? What do you want out of this business?

8:37Yeah, emotionally, on a purely psychological level, I do feel very much the same as I did prior to this when it comes to, you know, releasing online. And there's like a, you know, my YouTube following obviously is, it pales in comparison to what's going on with this film currently, but still at a certain point, my brain can't comprehend more people than what I have there. It's like you can't even picture that many people standing in a room or an auditorium, or it's just, it's too massive. So I think creative satisfaction kind of maxes out at a certain point, and I'm really content. I think I always am project first, where it's really just about the day-to-day work, sort of being invested in a project that excites me.

9:14And I think, you know, in terms of what I get out of this, it's more the ability. I think, you know, this film was a case of it, but I guess even more so in the future, having the real ability to seek out specific talent and be able to have a meaningful financial relationship with being able to make these projects and work together in an official capacity.

9:37Matt Belloni:And I think I think you're not getting 10 million dollars to do your YouTube videos and you're not getting to scaling production value. Yeah. You're not getting two Oscar nominees to be in your videos. And you're not I mean, there must be some amazing satisfaction knowing that millions of people around the world paid money to go see your movie. You can't match that on YouTube. It's abstract. And I think the financial area is where it gets the most abstract. But yes, it feels very strange and interesting to have back rooms be ballooned in such a hugely cultural way right now. Because it was before, but you can look at trend data.

10:15Nothing like this. I thought it was big before. I was wrong.

10:20Matt Belloni:I know. And ultimately, I think that's the appeal. By the way, every agency in town wants to sign you. Are you going to take on an agent? uh you know i'm i'm aware of of the options and i i i you have a great management company three arts is good i know i know your lawyer but uh the agencies do want you yes yes uh yeah my inbox is is a is a nightmare right now so um i i am considering all options and um again i think i think that kind of that conversation will be uh uh expanded upon in the in the near future Okay. That's appropriately vague. Yes. What do you think studios and the traditional Hollywood establishment should learn from the success of your film?

11:09You know, I can't adequately speak as an artist to the, I guess, the corporate interests on the side of these studios where I think, you know, there's going to be a real desire to try to recapture lightning in a bottle with what happened here. And I already see like tons of, you know, just memes and people humorously joking about how we're going to try to attach Logan Paul to direct the Skibbity Toilet movie. And it's going to be like this, this and this.

11:31Matt Belloni:Well, Michael Bay's already doing that one. Yeah, I've heard. um but uh you know i i think i think creatively the answer is kind of obvious which is that you need to be patient and and and find and really identify the the right kinds of projects that are going to be able to take off and really i think really submerge yourself if you're not or i think rely on people who are already submerged i think i think trying to um jump into the deep end and and pull up a project from like a niche internet community and expect it to be speaking to them within like a six month turnaround, it feels a little sloppy.

12:09It's, you know, if you can identify people who are already working hard in that area who are just, you know, artists who, who have made the internet their home because there's not really another outlet for them. Um, you know, I think, I think the more you can lean on that in a actual, like holistically meaningful way, um, chances are you'll get some, some interesting stuff, but, uh, you know, truthfully, I'm, I'm not, I'm not one to give advice yet. I need more time. I get it. You know, especially with something like, like backrooms, when you are adapting some kind of internet grown IP and backrooms is a weird one just to say it in that I do have a specific fleshed out IP iteration of this thing online.

12:47And that's the only relationship I have with backrooms meaningfully. Like it's, it is my specific interpretation and it follows a series online and, and the film exists in that canon. Um, but it's a much, much bigger thing than, than just that. There's so many different, uh, you know, interpretations and projects people

13:04Matt Belloni:have done with it so it is diffused by the way a24 would very much like you to stop saying that because they will assert intellectual property rights over anyone else who tries to make a backrooms movie no of course but i uh i i wouldn't be able to sleep at night if i did so i know no i get it and and you're very gracious about that i do think you did something with this that is not replicable so i don't think you or a24 has anything to worry about it's a mixed bag um But I think making sure that, you know, when adapting a project, you're not just wearing the costume of the thing as it's grown over time, but you're going back to the root of what made the initial, you know, the inception of a project interesting and sort of pulling from the same initial well.

13:47I think, you know, it's kind of the mark of any hopefully good adaptation. And I just feel like you don't see it enough. You're pulling like way down the line. It's just like the costume of the thing. You just have the flashy characters. But that's about it. The DNA is gone.

14:01Matt Belloni:And you've talked about how you feel there are a lot more stories for you to tell in this world, whether they be television series or web series or sequels. Where are you on a sequel right now? I heard that you are looking for a writer. I'm not sure where that got out. That seems more like a hallucinated. Get used to it, man. The media sucks. Oh, yeah. No, I got doxxed this weekend. You did? Oh, that's terrible. Yeah, it's been a fun time. Yeah. I know. And I saw, like, there was coverage of your parents' house. Like, it's kind of awful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, but let's not talk about that.

14:32I'm curious what, if any, legacy IP interests you.

14:39Matt Belloni:Would you be curious to do a Star Wars movie or to look at Star Trek or any of these kind of big properties? No, I think barring one or two things from my personal childhood, stuff from the early 2000s, one or two things really without naming them out loud. Oh, you can name them. if you name them the producers will be on your ass in 20 seconds oh well maybe stuff may already be be moving a little bit so oh that's interesting those are the only things um yeah pretty much nothing i'm not too interested in ip work i pretty much entirely want to focus on on on original projects just because you know i do this because it's uh my way of processing life as is art.

15:26And I typically find needing to step into someone else's view of life tends to just kind of damage the initial point for me. So the only ones I would look at are ones that have shaped my own experience of life so much that I feel like I have something to do with that conversation in the first place.

15:43Matt Belloni:So where do you get your ideas? My brain. I feel like what are you reading? What is your media intake? What is your, you know i know you're you're into gaming and and stuff i'm just curious a bit yeah i mean it's it's a really assorted sort of uh diffused array of stuff where you know i've i've grown up with the internet as being like a big pretty big presence in my life as have a lot of people um but i i think i'm i'm very much on like the uh science tuber side of the internet and whatnot so it's a lot of people like v-sauce veritasium um uh staro pyro just like you know people who are just like engineers and technicians and just science enthusiasts just kind of, you know, just talking armchair style for fun about the stuff.

16:29And so that's kind of been a lot of my childhood. And then I think more recently it's transformed into like, I, I, I've always been attached to science fiction as like a draw, like growing up was really into the portal games and half-life and whatnot. But I have found over time that I'm more interested in the, the grounded parts of science fiction that I can, you know, see and interact with in my actual own life in reality and less interested in the stuff that can veer into the fantastical. And so, um, I think with time I've sort of become even more and more just drifting into like a techno thriller kind of place like, you know, Daniel Suarez, I'm a big fan of, um, uh, Ted sharing is great.

17:07I won't be able to do a good list of all the authors I read, but I read a handful of things from a few directions and And it kind of averages out to just a general curiosity about the world as I'm entering into it in a meaningful way.

17:21Matt Belloni:You've said in interviews you never really spent a lot of time in movie theaters and fell in love with movies like so many filmmakers talk about. I thought that was pretty interesting considering you've now got the biggest opening ever for someone your age. Yeah, I mean, like I deeply enjoy going to the movie theater. And I, you know, now having actually done this thing, I have such a greater appreciation for just the how much better the theatrical DCP mix is going to be. And and so then in the near field. So suddenly now with that awareness, I'm trying to go to the theater as much as I can. I have not done a good job of that yet because I've been wall to wall busy.

18:01But, um, I, you know, I, I think I got more of this from like people talking about movies online. If I'm being completely honest, I think it's more the discourse in the, uh, the community. And I'm very much a fan of things like you were saying before. It's like, I am that kind of, uh, person who interacts with, with art. Like I like to pick one in a thousand things that I get into. And when I get into it, I really get into it. Um, like so much that it becomes like a lifelong kind of obsession. Like, you know, when I watch, I watched Mr. Robot and now I've watched it eight times.

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19:56Matt Belloni:This gloriously off-kilter noir is an AFI television program of the year and one of 2025's most critically acclaimed shows. The Lowdown is available for your Emmy consideration on Hulu and Disney Plus for bundlesubscribers.com. You said you're personally opposed to using generative AI in the creative process, which I thought was kind of interesting, considering that you're a visual effects guy and so much of your upbringing was in creating visual looks and stuff with your computers. Explain that a little bit and how you're thinking about AI and the creative process. Yeah, I mean, there's obviously a lot of applications and it's used as a buzzword and, you know, it's very different to be actually, you know, generating a backdrop versus automating a rotoscope task.

20:45But I would say, you know, barring menial tasks like rotoscoping and whatnot i i personally like you said am very opposed to the use of it in in my work and in creative work in general i i think most vfx artists i know feel the same way most most artists you know you won't be hard-pressed to find an artist saying the same thing i am but um i for my i guess i can explain it in in my reasoning which i think you know the two things that i care most about with with my art are one my relationship to the work and like enjoying the day-to-day of doing the work. And at a certain point you can, you know, you can rewind time 50 years and, and, uh, do a same comparison with how the, I do everything on literally the laptop I'm talking to you on right now.

21:28So it's like the fact that I can do that in a timely manner is already a version of that, that scaling ease. Um, but I do think there comes a hump where, where you lose such an extreme degree of creative specificity, uh, that when I, I, I can speak from my experience When I see in a project online that generative fill or some sort of generative AI has been used in some way for some detail, the part of my brain that desires to really live with the piece of art and look into the details and the nooks and crannies and get excited about what I might see in the background or look for little details and just look for a general deliberate richness in the set direction, that immediately goes away.

22:09because if the artist is willing to make that kind of like completely arbitrary choice and whatever the uh the the the tool they're using to you know create that piece of media is is going to obviously not be uh something that came from them and it's something they didn't place there if it becomes arbitrary i'm then open to conclude almost any choice in that project is arbitrary on a human level and so i just kind of tune out and so i want to make clear to people that's uh not like that That would be a tragedy, I think.