The Right and Wrong Lessons From ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’

0:04Matt Belloni:This episode is brought to you by FX's Love Story, John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bissett. The critically acclaimed series explores the undeniable chemistry, whirlwind courtship, and high-profile marriage of one of the most iconic couples of the 20th century. With Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly leading a cast including Naomi Watts, Constance Zimmer, Alessandro Nivola, and Grace Gummer. Called A Stunning Portrait of Love by Variety, Love Story is Emmy-eligible in all limited series categories. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. It is Monday, June 1st. What a weekend at the box office.

0:45Matt Belloni:Backrooms, the suspense thriller made for$10 million by 20-year-old Kane Parsons based on a 4chan meme and a series of YouTube videos. It opened to a crazy sounding 81 million domestic for A24. That's more than three times the previous biggest opening for that studio. And the second place movie was Obsession, made for less than 1 million by another YouTuber, Curry Parker. That's now across 100 million domestic. Obsession actually grew in its third weekend. Very, very rare to see that. These two outsized hits, combined with the performance earlier this year of Iron Lung from another YouTuber, that's led to a lot of chatter around town and in the media.

1:28Matt Belloni:This is a major cultural milestone in movies, people are saying. It's like the 1970s all over again. The passing of the torch to a new generation, a sign that Gen Z has finally asserted itself at the box office, especially since this weekend saw a crazy drop of nearly 70 % for the second weekend of Mandalorian and Grogu, the Star Wars movie. This weekend marks a pivotal point in moviegoing, Jason Blum, the producer, told Bloomberg this weekend. Blum's company was one of several producers on both of those big movies. I love Star Wars, he said, but 20-year-old kids want something different. So, a little hyperbole going on there, but clearly something is afoot here.

2:10Matt Belloni:Is this really a monumental moment in the history of the movie business and what lessons both good and bad will Hollywood take from the YouTuber phenomenon. That's what we're talking about today with Lucas Shaw, our Monday guy. It's the wild weekend at the box office and the right and wrong lessons that Hollywood will take. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany and this is The Town.

2:36Matt Belloni:Okay, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back, Lucas. It was nice to see you yesterday yeah do you have uh as bad sunburn as i do after the dodger win we did sit in the sun and watch the dodgers for three hours um i was smart enough to spray myself with lotion that you did not yeah i know i have one day i'll learn probably you will learn in my old age i have to take care of myself but all right are we in the upside down here a third weekend of a low budget horror movie outgrossed the second weekend of a star wars movie a movie made for 10 million dollars open to 81 million domestic what is going on here is the enthusiasm real well the enthusiasm is real is the enthusiasm justified i mean i'm getting i'm sure your texts are blowing up movies are back we're talking about this sentiment online that this is 1969 and easy riders and the beginning of this era of new era of auteur filmmaking where what works in Hollywood is going to just start throwing money at the next generation of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas and Martin Scorsese.

3:48Matt Belloni:I got, it's 1975 and this is Jaws. And we are now heading into a new blockbuster era of YouTube filmmakers. I am more likely to agree with the 69 than the 75. I don't think this is Jaws, but. Yeah. so so you're on board you are drinking the kool-aid of this is a significant moment in theaters because i'm not so sure i i listen i'm happy for it i'm just like the the youtube filmmaker thing has been a thing for a while the low budget horror thing has been a thing for a while and a lot of these movies don't work you know a lot of these youtube filmmakers that come out of that world like doesn't work and also a lot of these movies have worked the talk to me filmmakers a couple of years ago, Danny and Michael Philippou, they were like YouTube filmmakers and they had a movie that grows to a hundred million worldwide.

4:40Matt Belloni:So it's not a totally new thing, but I do think that this is the, a moment that we are going to hang the trend on and the trend is real. That was a really classic Matt moment where you asked the question and then answered your own question before I could answer your question. Well, but no, now you have the chance to tell me I'm wrong. I think it is a significant moment. I hesitate to overreact in the way that some people already have for some of the reasons that you just outlined. But two of these small movies made by YouTube filmmakers coming off of the success we also saw with the Mark DePriar movie Iron Lung earlier this year and happening at a time where also a lot of the this sort of more kind of traditional IP, there are doubts about, right?

5:30I think the fact that it's happening at the same time that a Star Wars movie is going to do probably the worst of any Star Wars movie ever, or it'll be between this and between Mandalorian and Solo. The fact that you've got like this kind of concerns about Marvel and I just, I think it's significant. And I do feel like even though we have seen YouTube filmmakers succeed before, And I had a response, you know, an editor made a good point in response to the newsletter that I wrote Sunday about like, well, what about the, you know, Issa Rae became famous for being a web creator. Quinta Brunson, a lot.

6:04There's sort of been a generation of TV creators who grew up on the Internet. But I feel like on the movie side and in Hollywood more generally, everything has felt like a one off. Right. Where like, OK, sure, like someone emerges out of YouTube and it works. but you also have a lot of talent that tried to cross over and didn't. And so having three happen within five months of each other and most of it happening outside of the traditional system but with support from traditional producers, I think creates a blueprint for how these companies can take advantage of emerging talent on YouTube. And for me, more than anything, should reframe how they think about who to work with instead of sort of, and how, instead of chasing audience and instead of trying to sort of force a YouTuber into the Hollywood system, find a way where it can be mutually beneficial, where you sort of empower the YouTube creator and the emerging filmmaker to tell the story they want to tell and then add the kind of expertise, experience, distribution, and marketing that Hollywood still controls to amplify.

7:15Matt Belloni:Yeah, there's going to be lessons out of this. There's going to be takeaways that studios are going to react because it has become such a thing and so discussed within the industry. Studios are going to start to react to this. And I think they're going to react in ways good and bad. So I want to go through some of those potential good and bad reactions here. And not just good and bad, but also sort of the right lesson and the wrong lesson, right? Instead of making value judgments. Right. So I'll start with what I think is the number one right lesson from this, which is the changing nature of intellectual property within the movie business.

7:56Matt Belloni:Because everyone's like, oh my God, these are two original films. These are not original films. Obsession is an original film, but Backrooms is not. Backrooms is IP. key people showed up for this because they knew the web series they were intrigued by the property and they wanted to see what it looked like on the big screen that is over and over we're seeing that these gen z titles that overperform with young audiences it there is this for lack of a better word or term there's this like for us by us mentality for young people where if it is authentic and feels like something that is for us, young people will show up.

8:35Matt Belloni:We saw it with Minecraft. We saw, even though those were older filmmakers in a traditional studio movie, saw it with Minecraft. We saw it with Five Nights at Freddy's. We saw it with these youth-skewing IP plays that have worked. And same thing with Markiplier. People showed up for Iron Lung because he was a brand. And in the digital world, filmmakers can brand themselves like never before. I mean, you and others have made the analogy to different periods in Hollywood where young filmmaker types have been scouted on different platforms, whether it's Peter Churning last week was talking about the Roger Corman movies that gave rise to a bunch of filmmakers.

9:14Matt Belloni:And then it was the music video directors in the 90s that became filmmakers like David Fincher or Mick G or those kinds of filmmakers. And yes, YouTube is a scouting ground, but it's also a branding platform for intellectual property. And that's what we're seeing here with Backrooms is that this is the new IP. So that's my first lesson. Do you think that if you're Neil Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, do you say this is further validation of our strategy and of how important we are in culture? Or do you look at it and say, man, it would be great if these movies could just debut on YouTube? No, I think the former.

9:52Matt Belloni:I think they're already doing that. They're out there spinning. Among the many, many people that were out spinning this past weekend, taking credit for this, YouTube was one of them. YouTube is the hub of culture. It all starts here. We are where people look to discover new things and connect with the content that they love. So I don't think losing a movie to theaters is a big deal. By the way, Markiplier is going to put his movie on YouTube very soon. and it may even be up already today for sale. And people will be able to buy it on YouTube. And then eventually, I'm sure, like the traditional windowing, it will probably be on YouTube for free.

10:32Matt Belloni:So I don't think YouTube is seeing this as a negative. I think they're seeing it as a positive. I think you're right that the right lesson is that what IP you need to be looking at is changing, right? It's the same reason why Hollywood has sort of woken up to romanticcy and a lot of these other things that are appealing to women under the age of 35 in the same way that I think gaming and finally finding the right gaming IP and the right YouTube IP is men under 35. The flip side to that is this belief that sort of IP is dead, which I think would be the wrong lesson, right? That is the wrong lesson.

11:09Or I guess put another way that, and I hate to say it because I do want to see more and more original movies, but this notion that like actually original, all things that are original are the future. And that is every, everything that the studio should be investing in. And we do need studios to invest in new and interesting ideas, of course. So you don't think like legacy IP holders are a little bit scared, like the seventies, eighties, nineties IP, your, your Jurassic parks, your fast and furious karate kid, like the running man, all that stuff just looks like dinosaurs now no i totally think that they should be scared but the but my point is that much as backrooms prove to be ip that people wanted and will probably spin out sequels and a tv show and all that stuff we're going to get to the end of the summer and the most popular movies are still going to be sequels and reboots and all that like yeah toy story should not be worried fast and furious maybe is is on its last legs but you know what's going to probably do really well toy story five.

12:10You know, it's going to do really well. Spider-Man, you know, what might do, what's probably going to do fine minions like Chris Melodandre from illumination is sitting there with his Mario and his minions is not feeling like IP is a problem or Pixar, which is kind of remaking a lot of their biggest movies, not feeling like IP is a problem. They just also need the new thing. Like Mario was a, was, is a relatively new franchise for illumination, right? Yeah. Okay, but let me ask you this. We did the IP draft two years ago, 2024. Among the things that you guys drafted are Star Wars, Avatar, Marvel, DC, Harry Potter.

12:48Do you still believe all of those are in the top 10? Probably. Most of them, not all of them. Yeah. We're about to have a Harry Potter show be one of the biggest shows of the year, so I'm not worried about that.

12:58Matt Belloni:Yeah, I'm not worried about IP. I'm worried about some of the lesser IP titles that have struggled, like, honestly, Star Wars. I mean, Star Wars is in a weird spot right now, where they tried to relaunch it as a theatrical franchise leaning on a streaming show, and the audiences are pretty clearly telling them that they consider this to be a streaming property now. So there's a lot riding on the next year's Star Wars movie with Starfighter. Or that they're just not that interested in Star Wars right now. I mean, you brought up The Running Man. I feel like we've seen a shift in kind of what nostalgia is really going to play, where some of those 80s and 90s titles might not work as well as something like Devil Wears Prada, right?

13:49Or Meet the Fockers. You're seeing some of the nostalgia plays are now the late 90s or even really early aughts movies are what people are going to want to see. Now, this can change. Obviously, we're just a couple years out of Top Gun, which was a peak 80s movie, but that was such a massive movie. It's different from something like The Running Man.

14:09Matt Belloni:Yeah, I don't know if I would put Backrooms in that top 10 of IP. Would you? No, but... I mean, even though Kane Parsons is talking about a TV show, he's talking about sequels. Yeah, it's just the potential upside. You're not, and look, I could be wrong, but I don't think you're like having a backroom theme park ride. No, horror IP is, there's a long history of hits in horror getting sequelized and exploited to death. And they're always reliable, but they're not Harry Potter. I mean, yeah, we were talking about this yesterday. The two of the big universal producers, right? Jason Blum, whose company was involved in both these movies, and chris melodondry who has gonna have these two huge animated movies this year i'd rather have the two big animated movies you just make a lot more money from them there's no pro like there's no shame in being jason blum obviously but there's more money to be made in the billion dollar franchises than the 200 million dollar franchises yeah all right so my next lesson that i think is a good one is youth culture leaning into youth culture well what is the difference between that and like rethinking which IP?

15:18Matt Belloni:Well, they're sort of related, but that one's an IP question and another is just an audience question, because I feel like there has been this feeling within Hollywood over the past 10 years that we've lost the young generation. We've lost them to their screens. We've lost them to the fractured media landscape. And Hollywood has consistently reinvented itself through its history by appealing to young people, whether it's the, like you said, the 60s and 70s gritty movies, whether it's the teen comedies of the 80s and 90s, or whether it's the Apatow stuff later on, like appealing to young people has always been a winning strategy.

16:01Matt Belloni:And I feel like over the past 10 years, we've gotten away from that because the perception was that the audience is getting older for movie theaters and what we're seeing now is that gen z is producing its own lure for theaters and studios should be leaning into that they should be hiring younger executives they should be empowering more filmmakers like this taking more risks we can get to the risk question but it's kind of a no-brainer to me if you look at the history but do you do you think i mean i obviously i agree with the the concept that you should be appealing to young people do you credit like do you think that these movies came about because the producers and studios were younger people well ultimately the financiers were but yes i mean i have a piece in my newsletter about the assistant who first found the reddit page that had the YouTube videos on it.

17:04Matt Belloni:And now I think ultimately the size of the audience for backrooms would have generated interest from Hollywood. But it's not a coincidence that a 27-year-old assistant at Sean Levy's company was the one that found this and said, this is a thing. Right. So, you know, and the fact of the matter is Hollywood keeps getting older and older. The people running these studios keep getting older and older. and the culture, if you want to keep relevant, needs to stay young. So there's a disconnect. Or they would say that it worked as intended and the younger person at the office found it. And then that led to, they basically kicked it upstream to someone else who set a meeting, who then kicked it upstream to the people who run the companies.

17:49And like, that's how the system is supposed to work.

17:51Matt Belloni:Sure, yes. But I think that the closer you are to the culture, the better you are as a studio executive regardless of age i guess do you think that the when if you're talking about these lessons right okay lean into new ip lean into youth culture bring in more have more young people higher up in the ranks do you believe that the traditional studios which are far more risk averse than the a24s and focuses of the world will be able to absorb those lessons and execute off of them? Probably not. They will probably throw some money at some hot properties and try. But I do think the culture of these smaller outfits is more conducive to this kind of breakout.

18:42Matt Belloni:They are closer to the actual creative community than maybe some of these other franchise and IP driven studios. And they're making less, generally making less expensive projects, which makes it easier to take the risk because, oh, I'm going to spend$10 million on this is very different from I'm going to spend 50 or 75 or 100. Yes. And what you're essentially asking is the culture of risk. And will the lesson from these movies be the studios need to be taking more risks? And I do think that they will take a little bit more risk. I'm not sure that the result will be what we are thinking. There'll be a lot of bad copycats is my point.

19:25Matt Belloni:And Warner Brothers and Paramount throwing some money at some YouTube people and saying, yeah, go for it. Right. But I don't know. There's something about these smaller companies that do this well. Yeah. Related to that, though, is sort of the question of can it happen outside of horror, right? Right. Because to your point at the outset, this has happened with horror before. It's happened many times with horror, in fact. So why haven't we seen it? I made the comparison to music video directors in the 90s. Eventually, yes, those people sort of started in music videos, then got relatively small movies that were comparable to the indies of the day.

20:13A lot of it was through New Line and stuff like that, but eventually leveled up to making kind of the big, big studio movies and having an interesting point of view. Like, when are we going to see some of these directors that seed up with horror movies crossover into making a different kind of movie for a big studio?

20:30Matt Belloni:Basically, when is Cain Parsons going to do Star Wars? There was for and has been for a long time, right? Sort of the film school to the film festival to the big studio pipeline, right? Like Marvel would hire people who like had big movies at Sundance or at Toronto or whatever. And the Jurassic World director was a Sundance guy. Yeah. Why are we going to see the same where, yeah, maybe not a Star Wars movie, given what we just said about Star Wars, but we're like Kane Parsons gets to make maybe not straight to a$200 million movie, but has like a cool idea for a$50 million movie that pick a studio wants to make.

21:09Matt Belloni:Yeah, of course. but that's almost like a bad lesson because we're seeing it with curry barker right now he's doing um texas chainsaw massacre like that's ip yeah but that stays within the horror lane it does it does but it's branded horror no i what you're saying is like is this going to be the next sundance to blockbuster pipeline it doesn't even have to be pre-branded right to your point about taking risks risks are making something new and original and different like yeah do these do do these filmmakers have an idea that doesn't have to, it doesn't have to cost$200 million can cost like$50 million.

21:44It's,

21:44Matt Belloni:are they Jordan Peele? Yeah. Yeah. Or are they Chris Nolan who was discovered in independent film and then given Batman? Right. And then became to your point about Brandon, like became a director that people go to the movies for, there will be people who go to see the Odyssey because it is a Christopher Nolan movie. exactly. I think there's gonna be a lot of attention on Cain Parsons next movie. whatever it is he says he's perfectly content to go back to youtube though that's the interesting thing is he now hollywood has to convince these guys to stay within the system i mean i think he'll probably enjoy the checks that he's gonna start getting from his movie if it grosses 300 million dollars but um but yeah he said he's perfectly content to be on youtube and he does have a tv show idea for this so maybe we'll get the a24 branded tv show on hbo from kane parsons he said that he thinks backrooms would be better as a tv show and that and he and he views the movie as just an episode great so is the mandalorian he will he'd probably want the next studio to let him own his movie yeah we'll see if that happens the playoffs are here and you You can predict the action all the way to the finals with FanDuel predicts.

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23:54Matt Belloni:All right. Other lessons that are good and bad. We already talked about the risk issue, just the risk taking. I'm trying to think about sort of the right lessons for how studios should interact with like YouTube as a, as a platform and a feeding ground. Cause you were, you were talking about how, you know, there's going to be a feeding frenzy for all these people and a lot of cheap, like bad copycats. And we're already seeing a lot of these companies look to YouTube more for programming for their streaming services than for theatrical movies, right? You know, Netflix is doing deals with folks.

24:26Fox is doing deals with folks. I do feel like, you know, and I talked about this a little bit earlier, but I think it bears repeating, like making, picking the right people and the right situation. This is not a sign that just like any YouTube creator should make your next movie, right? Find someone who has a clear point of view, who has demonstrated an ability to make something. And I think more than anything, prioritize people who are filmmakers behind the camera rather than chasing the on-camera talent. Because that is where there has consistently been more success. Yes, some failures, but generally more success is the people who are filmmakers and not just vloggers or YouTube talent.

25:15Matt Belloni:Yeah. And I do think that the feeding frenzy for these filmmakers now is going to extend to the studio system. And we will get the equivalent of something like the Daniels signing with Universal after Everything Everywhere breaks out. We will get those deals. The Paramount, I'm sure, wants to make a splash for their genre division. I'm sure all these studios are looking at these filmmakers now and saying, okay, the floodgates are open. We can now hire these people without the risk of getting fired. So we're going to start doing that. I also think the other wrong lesson from this is to just mine Reddit and like creepypasta and just go after any other popular thread on Reddit or something and be like, great, that's a movie.

26:03Matt Belloni:Although isn't that already happening? I mean, at least in the development circles. How many studio chiefs do you think prior to this weekend were familiar with the phrase creepypasta? Zero. Zero. I Googled it. You guys, I'm clean. I Googled it this weekend. It's totally fine. But I guarantee you, it's like when Barbie succeeded and they greenlit three more Mattel movies. I do think they're just going to go in and be like, great, what are some other horror Reddit threads that are really cool? Yeah. There's a scary ghost in the background of this surveillance video. Let's option it. Yes, they're going to forget the fact that the reason why this movie exists is because of Cain Parsons more than it is because of Backrooms.

26:39Matt Belloni:Yes, he was like bedridden as a teenager and developed a personal style and like just started honing his craft on YouTube. Like that's the new film school. Yeah, big loser film school. What's the most annoying thing you guys have heard in the last 48 hours about this? What's annoyed you the most? Oh God, just the credit grabs. You know, the interviews all weekend, and the tweets, the texts quietly, you know, off the record, this person was really responsible. Yeah, there are some people I appreciate. The first couple of conversations I had with people were like those who did not try to make it all about themselves and gave credit where it was due, which gave me, I feel like a pretty good point of view on how it all came together.