Four years ago, while many 16-year-olds were preoccupied with passing their driving tests, Kane Parsons was busy in his bedroom crafting a chilling nine-minute film. His creation depicted a man ensnared in a nightmarish maze of deserted rooms that seemed to stretch on forever.
Parsons, who describes himself as a bit of a loner, ventured into creating YouTube content after being diagnosed with severe childhood arthritis at the age of 13. When he shared his film on YouTube, it quickly went viral, amassing 10 million views in just two weeks.
By the time he turned 17, Parsons had already secured representation with a Hollywood agent.
Shortly thereafter, he inked a deal with the renowned studio A24, known for its Oscar-winning productions such as “Moonlight” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” The studio provided him with an $8 million budget to transform his ‘bedroom film’ into a full-fledged Hollywood movie.
Now 20 years old and still not of legal drinking age in his home state of California, Parsons has become the talk of Hollywood. His film, “Backrooms,” recently soared to the top of the US box office.
The movie, which faithfully recreates the original YouTube film’s unsettling mustard-yellow rooms lit by humming fluorescent lights, has grossed an impressive $130 million worldwide since its release last weekend and currently leads the British box office as well.
Backrooms even managed to attract British Oscar-winner Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years A Slave) for a fraction of his normal salary because he was so keen to work with the teenage YouTube sensation.
Parsons’s creation is crushing traditional studio releases like the latest Star Wars offering, The Mandalorian And Grogu – and let’s see how it fares against He-Man, the $200 million superhero blockbuster starring Nicholas Galitzine, which opens this weekend.
Kane Parsons, a self-professed loner was given an $8million budget by prestigious studio A24 to turn his terrifying nine minute ‘bedroom movie’ into a full scale film
Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Clark, a furniture store owner who discovers the backrooms in the store’s basement
The film is primarily set in garish mustard-yellow rooms bathed in buzzing fluorescent lights called the backrooms
But Parsons is not the only fresh-faced YouTuber to storm the gates of Hollywood.
One Tinsel Town executive with a major studio told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There hasn’t been a revolution like this in Hollywood since talkies replaced silent movies. You used to have to go through the system and work your way up before any studio would trust you to make a film.
‘These kids are coming out of their bedrooms and making movies, which are getting young audiences, particularly young men, back into movie theatres in numbers we’ve not seen in decades.’
Indeed, the number two film at the global box office is Obsession, a horror film made for $750,000 by 26-year-old YouTuber Curry Barker.
Released on May 15 it has grossed $155 million worldwide.
Earlier this year Mark Fischback, who goes by the YouTube handle ‘Markiplier’, self-financed the sci-fi horror Iron Lung, which has just crossed the $50 million mark.
This bright new order even has a name: Creator-driven cinema.
The executive says: ‘People in the music business have launched careers off YouTube. Justin Bieber started off posting music videos online but it’s taken the movie business a while to catch up, mostly because it was hard to make good movies on a tiny budget in your bedroom.
‘But technology has become so sophisticated and AI tools so good that now any talented kid with a good idea can hit the jackpot.’
Renate Reinsve stars alongside Ejiafor as Clarke’s therapist Mary who also ventures into the backrooms in the film
The film has brought in a staggering $130 million globally since opening last weekend
Pictured from left to right: Finn Bennett, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kane Parsons, Renate Reinsve, Lukita Maxwell and Mark Duplass attend the LA special screening of Backrooms on May 7
The source adds: ‘The thing about YouTubers is they are tapping into the insecurities of the post #MeToo generation because they grew up during Covid, suffered through isolation and have the same insecurities and hang-ups as the kids who are going to watch their films.’
Critics have raved about Backrooms, in which Ejiofor plays as a man who discovers a portal in his furniture store into a sinister alternate realm. He then wanders with increasing anxiety and horror through a maze of backrooms that never ends.
One critic said: ‘The film taps directly into the helplessness and loss of control people felt during Covid. Parsons has captured the psychological unease of an entire generation.’
Last weekend, Parsons became the youngest director in history to top the box office in the US and UK.
His own backstory is as remarkable as his newfound success.
Born in Petaluma, California, his childhood was cut short at 13 when he was diagnosed with arthritis so severe he was left bedridden.
He told the New York Times: ‘Arthritis for a 13-year-old didn’t make sense.’
His father, a video game developer, encouraged his son to immerse himself in creating escapist worlds on his computer using free software like Blender.
Parsons now has weekly autoimmune injections, which allow him to lead a fairly ‘normal’ life.
But the stress of making Backrooms into a movie forced him to take two weeks of bedrest during post-production: ‘I ended up getting a little bit too much on my plate. I definitely abused my nervous system to the fullest degree I possibly could.’
Obsession’s Curry Barker started off making comedy skits on YouTube, which were watched by a handful of his friends before progressing to horror films ‘just for fun’.
He said: ‘No-one was making the films me and my friends wanted to watch so I decided to do it myself.’
The 26-year-old self-described ‘straight C and D grade student’ from the backwoods of Mobile, Alabama struck gold two years ago when a film he made for $800 in his bedroom called Milk & Serial racked up 2.4 million views on YouTube.
‘That made me think bigger,’ he said.
Now Barker is being credited with helping revive a struggling cinema industry devastated by the pandemic when audiences abandoned theatres in favour of streaming services such as Netflix.
Obsession, made for just $750,000 is about Bear, a shy music store employee who buys a lucky talisman, a wooden stick that grants one wish when snapped.
Bear wishes that his best friend Nikki would ‘love me more than anything else in the world’.
The wish backfires when Nikki develops a deadly obsession with him.
The studio executive says: ‘Curry has millions of followers on YouTube and those kids all went to the cinema to see Obsession. Some of them probably went to the movie theatre for the first time.
‘These are kids that grew up during the pandemic, who never got to do the traditional Friday nights at the movies with a girlfriend that previous generations did. Many of them are experiencing the fun of watching a movie with an audience for the first time.’
Curry has been offered $10 million for his next film, another horror movie he has not even written yet.
He landed an agent at powerhouse United Talent Agency and has been signed up to direct a remake of the blood-soaked 1974 classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Social media has democratised the movie landscape to the point that studios will take a punt on filmmakers who have never set foot on a professional set or sat through a single film studies lecture.
‘Traditionally if you wanted to make movies you went to film school and then joined a production company in a lowly position as a runner or grip,’ the executive said. ‘That’s history.’
But dyed-in-the-wool cinephiles are not convinced that YouTubers will save Hollywood.
One leading figure in the industry with an Oscar to her name told the MoS: ‘I think you will see creator-driven cinema in genres like comedy and horror. But can these kids make a masterpiece like Lawrence Of Arabia? I don’t think so.
‘What they can do is work efficiently with time and money because they’ve grown up creating content in their bedrooms. But are they artists? For every film that makes it there are hundreds that don’t.’
Time will tell if any of the YouTubers eventually end up standing on stage with a golden statuette in hand. But don’t rule it out.
The Oscars ceremony itself is embracing new media: from 2029 Hollywood’s marquee event will move from traditional TV to be streamed worldwide on, where else, YouTube.
