It was a historic weekend for both the box office and horror films, with A24/Chernin's "Behind the Scenes" and Focus Features' "Obsession" breaking records for both their studios and Hollywood as a whole.
With $118 million worldwide, including $81.4 million in the U.S., matching the three-day openings of Disney/Lucasfilm's The Mandalorian and Grogu, Behind the Scenes not only became A24's highest-grossing film of all time, but also the highest-grossing film by a debut director, and made 20-year-old Kain Parsons the youngest director ever to top the box office.
Like the 2023 video game adaptation Five Nights at Freddy's, which grossed a similar $80 million in North America, Behind the Scenes draws an almost exclusively younger audience: 86% moviegoers under 35, 66% under 25, and a staggering 44% under 21. By comparison, The Mandalorian and Grogu, which had nearly identical opening weekends, each had a 27% share of under-25s.
Even if this heavy Gen Z and Alpha bias, coupled with solid but not outstanding audience ratings like a B- on CinemaScore and 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, leads to a stronger opening, "Behind the Scenes" has already more than broken even and will easily surpass "Marty Supreme's" $191 million worldwide haul next week to become A24's highest-grossing film of all time.
And with a clear sequel set-up at the end, Behind the Scenes has all the makings of a blockbuster for the A24 franchise in the company's 13-year history.
After such a successful launch for a horror film, one might think that another horror film currently storming theaters, "Obsession," would lose its popularity. But that's not the case. In its third week of release, the box office receipts for Curry Barker's hit again grew 10% to $26.4 million, bringing the domestic total to $104.7 million, an all-time record for Focus Features, and $148 million worldwide.
That's an impressive figure considering "Obsession" didn't generate as much buzz on YouTube as "Backrooms" did before its release, as the buzz surrounding its midnight premiere at TIFF last year was largely limited to industry insiders and die-hard cinephiles.
But since its release, its unsettling storyline and Indy Navarrette's stellar performance have made it a must-see film, continuing to find new audiences and achieving the kind of results only Angel's 2023 indie hit, The Sound of Freedom, has achieved in recent years, which Obsession looks set to surpass as the season progresses, surpassing $200 million at the U.S. box office.
There's another important connection between this weekend's two biggest horror hits: the joint Blumhouse-Atomic Monster studio, founded by Jason Blum and James Wan. Atomic Monster co-produced Behind the Scenes, along with Shawn Levy's 21 Circles and Peter Chernin's North Road Entertainment, while Blumhouse co-produced Obsession, the lowest-budget film to gross over $100 million domestically since Blum's acclaimed 2009 film Paranormal Activity.
To be continued…
The article "'Backrooms' Takes $118M Worldwide in Opening Weekend, Kane Parsons Becomes Youngest Director to Top Box Office" originally appeared on TheWrap.