Obsession and Backrooms are breaking records and making history at the box office, and producers Jason Blum and James Wan say the films are reminiscent of the 1970s era of young filmmakers breaking into the horror genre.
The horror leaders opened the Produced By Conference at Universal Studios lot Saturday, where they sat down with PGA President Stephanie Allain to discuss the state of cinema, movie theaters’ recovery from COVID and their future goals for Blumhouse–Atomic Monster.
“Since COVID, there’s been this lethargic feeling around theatrical, and is it relevant anymore and is it going to survive?” Blum said. “And what I think is so incredible about Obsession and Backrooms is that they’re a new kind of movie. They’re made by non-traditional directors, directors who really honed their skills as creators online.”
Obsession, released May 15, was written and directed by 26-year-old YouTuber Curry Barker and made for $750,000. Now in its third week, the Focus Features and Blumhouse release is making history as the first movie outside of Christmas since 1982 to increase in its second and third weekends.
Meanwhile, Backrooms debuts this weekend from fellow YouTuber Kane Parsons, who at just 20 years old is eyeing the biggest opening in A24 history. Co-financed by Chernin Entertainment, the $10 million adaptation of Parsons’ viral YouTube short-film series could gross as much as $90 million.
Blum and Wan also noted that they have another forthcoming project, a Blair Witch Project reboot with a creator, Dylan Clark, who got his start online.
“Their hope and desire and dream is to make cool movies,” Blum said. “Backrooms and Obsession are edgy and weird and fucking nuts. And to me, there’s almost this feeling of the ’70s, of a new generation of young people making edgy movies that are connecting in theaters in a crazy way. So many young people grew up in a time when they couldn’t go to the movies, and they haven’t had something made for them that gets them off their iPad and into theaters. Suddenly they have two movies.”
“Obsession this weekend went up 20 percent from last weekend,” Blum continued. “Last weekend it went up 30 percent from the opening weekend. No movie has done that, gone up two weekends in a row, since E.T. It is unbelievable.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Wan, whose directing credits include Saw, The Conjuring and Insidious, spoke about where his passion for genre storytelling originated and how horror’s success continues to help the entertainment industry.
“I’ve been a horror fan since I was a kid, and so naturally I grew up on a steady diet of horror movies through the ’80s and ’90s, inspired by great filmmakers like John Carpenter and Wes Craven,” Wan said. “I look at them and think, ‘You know what? I kind of want to do what they did.’ Today we kind of mimic that model. And here we are. I say this to anyone who will listen: The horror genre keeps saving our industry.”
As for the future of Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, which includes television, gaming and live-events divisions and officially closed its merger deal in 2024, the producers said they plan to “adapt with the audience” and refuse to “get comfortable.”
“What’s the aspiration?” Blum asked. “‘The Disney of horror’ is the aspiration in five years.”