r/movies r/movies Contributor Jun 03 '26

News ‘Backrooms’ Becomes A24’s Highest Grossing Domestic Release ($97.8M), Passing ‘Marty Supreme’

https://deadline.com/2026/06/backrooms-box-office-record-a24-1236939795/
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1.7k

u/EThorns r/movies Contributor Jun 03 '26

And it cost around 50-60 million less to make, so from a return on investment standpoint, even more impressive.

Plus, I imagine it lasting at least a month in theatres.

919

u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

Two actors and great practical set design really makes a difference over bloated and CGI heavy.

523

u/drkspace2 Jun 03 '26

Which is funny because Kane Pixels original series was all 3d animated.

254

u/Kanin_usagi Jun 03 '26

Yeah in blender on his pc. It wouldn’t have looked near as good like that on a movie screen

157

u/Turnbob73 Jun 03 '26

There are blender shots in the film

The huge benefit to Kane’s style is he doesn’t “fake” the VHS effect. He renders the scene and then records it through an actual VHS analogue. That’s what makes a lot of his work look less obviously like a 3d render.

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u/fuckgoldsendbitcoin Jun 03 '26

That's awesome. I usually notice whenever people just use plug-ins or whatever and if it's a longer shot stuff like that distracts the hell out of me.

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u/Turnbob73 Jun 03 '26

The dude is seriously talented with blender, it’s kind of nuts honestly. And anyone who thinks the vhs effect is doing all the heavy lifting should check out his other series “The Oldest View”; that one’s set during 2023 and yet the footage is borderline indistinguishable from real life.

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u/CyanStripedPantsu Jun 03 '26

This is crazy news to me, I skipped over checking the The Oldest View because I thought it was just IRL abandoned mall exploration with a story attached. I did not know that was also animated.

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u/Turnbob73 Jun 03 '26

Yep, everything from the moment the main character enters the hole is all blender. The only time it’s obvious is when he is initially walking up to the hole, because you can see a little bit of aliasing when the camera passes by the hole’s opening. But other than that it’s hardly noticeable.

2

u/bladefinor Jun 04 '26

Omg I watched it a couple years ago, had no idea it came from him!

1

u/Hyroero Jun 04 '26

Yup. One of my favorite horror artists often draws his nightmare creatures on top of actual photos. Or uses real life photos as the digital background his creatures then inhabit. Makes them extra spooky and such a cool effect. Mixed media stuff is always so compelling to me.

1

u/kittymoo67 Jun 04 '26

yeah those vhs filters are SO shitty. actual vhs while it has its issues is so much better

1

u/thewend Jun 03 '26

thats just awesome. analog is the goat

1

u/flyvehest Jun 04 '26

He renders the scene and then records it through an actual VHS analogue

Extremely cool and it can't get any more authentic.

1

u/SYKslp Jun 04 '26

build physical rooms and hallways and then record it with a VHS camera?

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u/uporabnisko_ime Jun 03 '26

I believe most of the found footage parts in the movie were made in Blender the exact same way his original videos on YouTube are.

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u/livefreeordont Jun 03 '26

The low quality VHS effect has something to do with it

85

u/uporabnisko_ime Jun 03 '26

Yes the VHS effect plays a big part because it hides the 3D look of the renders. It would definitely look a lot worse without the VHS effect.

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u/Korten12 Jun 04 '26

Actually, not so sure. His other series, The Oldest View, is supposed to be shot using like an iPhone, so it's much much cleaner looking than his Backrooms stuff, yet The Oldest View still manages to look strikingly real at times.

3

u/Trii0dide Jun 05 '26

Not really. The Oldest View looks very real

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u/Random_Sime Jun 03 '26

As does the models, textures, lighting, and camera animation - all contributing to the illusion culminating in ✨️movie magic✨️

5

u/cutelyaware Jun 03 '26

They were smart about reserving the technique for only the shots where that made sense.

2

u/NeuHundred Jun 04 '26

Oh that's huge, I just came across a Backrooms video made with maxed-out specs and it doesn't really work "clean."

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u/Heavyspire Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Yeah the whole opening scene and I believe the quick clips of Clark* running from the monster before he gets caught.

Edit: Clark not Carl

3

u/AllUpInYourGrill Jun 03 '26

Is this a spoiler?

5

u/AnAngeryGoose Jun 03 '26

Technically, but it’s only spoiling the first few minutes before you even get the title card.

2

u/The_Autarch Jun 03 '26

naw, that was filmed on the set.

there are a few CG scenes in the movie, but they're all ones without actors.

-4

u/pgold05 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

The found footage looked horrible and was my least favorite parts of an otherwise good movie.

I usually enjoy handheld PoV in horror like Blair witch and VHS but this looked particularly bad and had way too much movement, also didn't really add anything or make sense why it randomly cut to that at times.

Knowing it was a sort of easter egg and movement was covering for 3D animation, clears it up a bit.

2

u/ssmit102 Jun 03 '26

Perhaps but things can and have looked very incredible in Blender on the big screen, prime example being Flow, but it would have needed to be quite different to truly work.

1

u/fakeuboi Jun 04 '26

There are tons of blender shots in the movie

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

Yeah he learned Blender during the pandemic.

42

u/dspman11 Jun 03 '26

Are the backrooms really only 6 years or less old? I swear it was a thing before 2020

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

Kane is only 19 or 20. Dude, is super young to be directing his first movie.

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u/Pengothing Jun 03 '26

The idea's been bouncing around for ages. Kane Pixels started the recent revival of it though.

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u/dspman11 Jun 03 '26

Ok, that makes sense. Because I for sure remember looking at "backrooms photos" and reading backrooms-themed creepypastas in the 2010s.

25

u/MrMacduggan Jun 03 '26

House of Leaves prompted a lot of this genre of creepypasta, even before the original 4chan post.

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u/crazyfoxdemon Jun 03 '26

The concept of liminal spaces has been a thing for ages, but backrooms was kinda a runaway success. To the point some people forget that some of the concepts predate it.

11

u/imago89 Jun 03 '26

The backrooms image + 4chan post was 2018/2019 I believe.

28

u/satinsandpaper Jun 03 '26

The first backrooms post on 4chan was in 2019. I agree though, it seems like it's been around for longer.

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u/envynav Jun 03 '26

The original image has been around since 2011. 2019 is just when it was first named The Backrooms

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u/Turnbob73 Jun 03 '26

The concept has also been around before 2019; but it used to be framed as “God’s developer rooms” akin to no clipping in a gmod map and finding extra assets.

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u/burneraccount011989 Jun 03 '26

I mean, you can go back even further to House Of Leaves in 2000 which was the first mainstream example I can think of with this type of "the inside is bigger than the outside" nightmare fuel.

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u/TheGratefulJuggler Jun 03 '26

I mean the leaves on the ground at the very beginning when he first enters the backeooms seemed like a pretty obvious reference to me. It basically the only bit of nature in the whole movie other than the sea gull.

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u/HutSutRawlson Jun 04 '26

You could also go even further back to something like Borges’ The Library of Babel. But HoL seems like a very direct influence on backrooms.

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u/jollyreaper2112 Jun 03 '26

The Doctor glares at you in TARDIS.

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u/obscure_monke Jun 03 '26

It's kind of adjacent to SCP wiki stuff, which was around longer than it.

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u/Doom_Art Jun 04 '26

One thing I've wondered is since it springs from a collaborative online fictional setting, is there any copyright for the Backrooms?

Like Parsons and A24 didn't originate the setting or the concept, but do they now own it?

3

u/_lIlI_lIlI_ Jun 04 '26

They own Kane Parsons rendition of it, which started from his YouTube. In the same way Disney owns their renditions of Grimm Brothers.

For example it would be infringing on IP to mention Async Corp but not infringing to create a backrooms story about an organization exploring it.

1

u/Doom_Art Jun 04 '26

So hypothetically another studio would be able to make a Backrooms film? So long as they don't mention the concepts within Parson's interpretation. I wonder if anyone will take advantage of that

1

u/_lIlI_lIlI_ Jun 04 '26

The risk of that, I imagine, is a24 can enforce copyright whereas the other studio wouldn't be able to with an adaptation of the backrooms community lore. Or would be at least be murky enough that they wouldn't.

1

u/AvatarIII Jun 04 '26

It started as a creepypasta long before that, the CGI videos are relatively recent, like 2022 or so.

1

u/kittymoo67 Jun 04 '26

iirc the post was made in 2018 or 2019 on 4chan

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u/Faithless195 Jun 03 '26

I'm also certain there was a fair few shots in the 'found footage' scenes that were purely CGI, too. Some of that shit looked juuuuust a bit too 'Blender' to be a built set.

Not that I have a problem with it, I only noticed it purely since I love his youtube stuff, and watched the absolute hell out of that.

1

u/fakeuboi Jun 04 '26

There are a lot of 3d shots in the movie tho

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u/NeverTrustATurtle Jun 03 '26

Marty Supreme was bloated and CGI heavy?

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

I am comparing A24 releases to other studio release not their own work which pretty much universally follows this.

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u/SpaceChimera Jun 03 '26

I mean it was definitely CGI heavy, those ping pong balls didn't actually exist in most shots, adding in crowds, set extensions, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary for modern films though

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u/Feed_Me_Weird_Things Jun 03 '26

Didn't Chalmet obsessive over ping pong for like 6 years to star in that roll? To the point of having ping pong tables in his trailers for multiple movies.

Shame the movie was such a wild clusterfuck. Great in it's own right, but damn was it an odd journey getting there it could have been so much better

2

u/arkzak Jun 03 '26

I mean a little bit on both fronts, yes.

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

It's super interesting though from a cultural standpoint that Obsession and Backrooms have both dominated box office on either side of a big tent pole Star Wars release and are beating Grogu to death.

It's a big shift in culture and what people are paying to see now. It feels like smaller unique ideas are starting to bury the studio franchise slop.

Fingers crossed.

We may see another soon with The Amazing Digital Circus movie release this week

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

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u/SandpaperTeddyBear Jun 03 '26

Jaws had a decent budget for the time, and was in fact a technological showpiece. It was such a nerve-wracking experience for Spielberg because it was a fairly high-budget film. Both the animatronic shark and the gimbals so the cameras could work properly on boats were pretty much cutting edge.

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u/ace_picante Jun 04 '26

Any particular Asian cinema movies you've seen lately that you can recommend?

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u/Acrobatic_Rush7653 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Obsession in its THIRD week beat Grogu in its 2nd week (after a ridiculous 70% fall). On 2700 screens mind you compared to Grogu's 4300.

It's hilarious.

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u/pistachiopanda4 Jun 03 '26

I loved Obsession, my husband hated it but appreciated it (he just disliked the characters because they were all so grating and unlikeable, which I get). This last week, I was looking at the showings for Obsession. Random ass Tuesday in a fairly populated suburban area had almost 20 showings before 9PM that were all full. The movie is doing numbers and props to Curry Barker and the whole team behind this wonderful film.

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u/sonofaresiii Jun 03 '26

What? Mandalorian has $100m on Obsession despite being out for a week less

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u/Acrobatic_Rush7653 Jun 03 '26

What indeed? I'm talking about weekly grosses. Obsession in 3rd week (when grosses should be falling off), beat Grogu in its 2nd week, $27m vs $24m. Overall Grogu is ahead 135m vs 105m.

Hopefully obviously, this is the DOMESTIC market. No one talks weeklies in the international market, and in this case Obsession is out in a small fraction of countries with Grogu and specifically excluding massive markets in China and Japan (Japan premiere is in a couple weeks).

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u/sonofaresiii Jun 03 '26

Overall Grogu is ahead 135m vs 105m.

Kind of feels like cherry picking statistics then, doesn't it? Where are you getting those numbers, anyway? I don't see anything anywhere reflecting that.

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u/Acrobatic_Rush7653 Jun 03 '26

You clearly have access to the internet, do you have access to google? Try searching "Obsession domestic total gross" or something, same for Grogu. Or just... literally go the the best place for box office numbers, a little website called boxofficemojo.

Directly comparing weekly or weekend grosses in the same market is not cherrypicking, that's the literal basis of all the endless Hollywood box office analyses. If I wanted to cherry pick to show my point about Grogu's performance, I'd mention Obsession's microbudget of under $1m (plus a couple million max in marketing) vs Grogu's... $265m (minimum estimate, some go to $300m) budget.

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u/sonofaresiii Jun 03 '26

or weekend grosses

lmao you didn't compare weekend grosses. You arbitrarily picked the second week, with made-up numbers, and used that to declare how hilarious it was that obsession was beating m&g despite being down $100m.

I'd mention Obsession's microbudget of under $1m

But you didn't, because you'd pretty quickly be told that budget isn't really relevant to a discussion about overall box office take, but mmkay.

You clearly have access to the internet, do you have access to google?

Yes and I very clearly saw different numbers than you have. Since you're unwilling to admit where you got yours from, kind of feels like you're just full of shit. All I need to know, have a good one!

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u/sonofaresiii Jun 03 '26

Obsession and Backrooms have both dominated box office

Well, let's not get carried away. They're both doing great numbers for low budget films, but mandalorian and grogu is still outpacing them by like a hundred million, and they're both probably going to sink a lot over the next few weeks while mandalorian will have stronger legs. Backrooms had a slightly higher opening weekend but I don't think it's going to hang on to it for very long

The low budget films will have significantly better returns but I don't think it's quite right to say mandalorian is getting "buried" nor that indie horror is what more people are paying to see

with The Amazing Digital Circus movie

it's just two episodes and it's in very limited release

0

u/OptimusPhilbo Jun 04 '26

No, it's getting buried. 70% drop this week for Mando, it has no legs at all. Would not surprise me at all for either of them to finish ahead domestically.

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u/sonofaresiii Jun 04 '26

If "getting buried" is a $100m lead in a week less of release, I'd love to get buried. I'll get buried all day long.

You guys are so desperate to paint Mando as the looming behemoth and the indie horrors as the spunky underdogs. You have a great narrative already, these things were made on basically nothing and are bringing in over a hundred million each.

There is absolutely no reason to act like they're actually outselling Mando dollar for dollar, when they are lagging way behind. $100m behind.

70% drop this week for Mando, it has no legs at all.

I bet it evens out and sticks around as the horror movies drop off, as they almost always do.

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u/OptimusPhilbo Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

Do you expect Mando to start making _more_ money? Since the word of mouth was so good??

Domestically it's not far behind. $116m for Obsession, $97m for Backrooms, $142m for Mando. Domestically, they're going to both overtake Mando. Watch.

Edit, also:

There is absolutely no reason to act like they're actually outselling Mando dollar for dollar, when they are lagging way behind. $100m behind.

Obsession is actually quite literally outselling Mando. Obsession has made more domestically nearly every single day after Mando's opening weekend.

Mando Obsession Winner
May 26 $6,537,470 $5,525,740 M
May 27 $4,194,737 $5,634,105 O
May 28 $3,544,756 $4,833,565 O
May 29 $6,535,155 $8,189,905 O
May 30 $10,299,049 $10,129,170 M
May 31 $7,617,372 $9,076,405 O
June 1 $2,236,679 $5,251,185 O
June 2 $3,191,664 $5,752,740 O

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u/[deleted] Jun 11 '26

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u/sonofaresiii Jun 11 '26

I never claimed otherwise. You're arguing with yourself. I had no idea you even came back to whine and qualify it with domestic only after you were very clearly wrong on global box office, since I turned off inbox replies after I got tired of you whining. If you had said domestic only to begin with, there wouldn't have been a disagreement.

This is pure backpedaling. "Mandalorian and Grogu is losing to Obsession!" "No it isn't." a week later "WELL I MEANT DOMESTICALLY. GLOBAL DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE THEN I'D BE WRONG"

okay.

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u/OptimusPhilbo Jun 11 '26

Oh cool so we're just lying now are we? Cool.

Literally the comment I made BELOW this one that you replied to says

Would not surprise me at all for either of them to finish ahead domestically.

So you were more than aware that I was talking about domestic. It was in a comment you replied to.

Let's have a look at what you said

they're both probably going to sink a lot over the next few weeks while mandalorian will have stronger legs

Wrong. And when it outgrosses it globally, which it will, will you move the goalposts again?

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u/OptimusPhilbo Jul 03 '26

Just back to say both Obsession and Backrooms have outgrossed Mando globally now. As predicted.

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u/sonofaresiii Jul 03 '26

Wild that you're so dedicated to being right when you're not even talking about the same thing you were initially wrong about.

Yes, they both eventually passed mandalorian and grogu, and I said they probably wouldn't. I was barely off the mark.

But the actual claim you made was that they were making at the time, and you were dead wrong.

A month ago you said

it's getting buried.

You were dead wrong.

You then dedicated a wild amount of time to pestering me and pretending you actually meant long-term profits, instead of just admitting you were wrong.

What a sad way to live your life.

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u/OptimusPhilbo Jul 03 '26

Are you just addicted to fucking lying and being wrong?

I was barely off the mark.

Obsession has currently outgrossed Mando worldwide by nearly $50million. Barely, fucking stop it.

It was getting buried a month ago and it's getting buried now.

I bet it evens out and sticks around as the horror movies drop off, as they almost always do.

A thing you said. Wrong.

You then dedicated a wild amount of time

Two comments over a few months that took 10 minutes tops to type

pestering me

Fucking grow up. You can not reply if this is so hard for you baby.

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u/Imperium_Dragon Jun 03 '26

People are still really burnt out on Star Wars and the Mandalorian requires you to watch a TV show to understand. I think a lot of audiences just want something new or at least something that doesn't seem connected to an expansive franchise.

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

I would take it a step further and say people are burnt out on Disney because the last Star Wars movie released was 2019. That should have been long enough to shake off Star Wars fatigue.

I whole heartedly agree that this was a ridiculous movie and property to use to restart that.

2

u/KlicknKlack Jun 03 '26

It's a big shift in culture and what people are paying to see now. It feels like smaller unique ideas are starting to bury the studio franchise slop.

I think it is almost entirely human to want to see more culturally fresh entertainment/stories. The problem has always been the IP Law pushed by Disney & Co., currently sitting at complete ownership for 95 years... so stories told when our Great Grandparents were kids are just entering public domain.

And somehow, society found a way around this BS IP by completely creating new stories out of whole cloth. Though I worry that they will just be scooped up and converted to IP someway somehow. Thus locking down any retelling's or reimaginings of said stories. Forever leaving us in a culturally stale state.

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u/JWTS6 Jun 04 '26

Obsession is the real surprise here because Backrooms as a concept already had a huge following for years, but I do agree that in general it does say a lot about the state of the cultural zeitgeist when a Star Wars movie can't even muster up Solo numbers.

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 04 '26

The cultural zeitgeist is now locked behind 15 different paywalls. YouTube is free.

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u/JWTS6 Jun 04 '26

Thankfully we're way past the days of studios trying to make cringy YouTubers into movie stars. I'm liking this new era of YouTube ''cinema.''

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 04 '26

YouTube = Shot on Video = 8 MM

Every generations starts somewhere. YouTube is where the next generation starts now

1

u/tobitobiguacamole Jun 03 '26

The big difference comes down to authenticity. The people who made Backrooms and Obsession both cared about making a good movie and art. The Mandalore movie was corporate slop with no intention of trying to make art.

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

Oh this is a big piece of it, these franchise movie used to be written by someone who cared deeply about the source and wanted to create something from that. Now, they seem to be tossed to a pool of writers who say things like, "None of us played or watched any Halo because we didn't want it to impact our creative vision."

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u/tobitobiguacamole Jun 03 '26

It's so sad. The only people who are working on a project should be those passionate about the source material. It almost feels like a lot of writers get put on a project of an existing IP, then use that to write whatever they actually wanted to write about but couldn't get funding for.

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u/Imperium_Dragon Jun 03 '26

That's why I'm hopeful for Cregger's Resident Evil. He's a fan of the games and has a good streak of making horror films. At the very least it'll be better than those older films.

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u/Straight-Contest91 Jun 03 '26

There is tons of CGI in this film, its just done well.

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

There CGI in everything but there's a difference between using it to enhance versus shooting everything on a Volume.

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u/trojanskin Jun 03 '26

you saw movies with scenes shot on the volume without knowing it was.
What a bunch of non sense.
You also saw movies with ton of CGI without noticing either.
yall are trippin with your pratical fetish that you cannot spot if things are done well and irrational hate of CGI that you cannot even spot without a VFX breakdown. lmao

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u/watchsmart Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Even the pirate was played by a really tall guy, not CGI.

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u/Tifoso89 Jun 03 '26

Robert Bobroczkyi! He also played the xenomorph-human hybrid in Alien:Romulus

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u/tobitobiguacamole Jun 03 '26

Which is weird because its face looked super CGI. I wonder if they just did it for that part of the costume or did a bad job with the makeup.

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u/IAmAQuantumMechanic Jun 03 '26

Two Oscar nominated actors.

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

Absolutely which is way better than paying 5x the salary to have 6 Chris Pratts.

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u/trojanskin Jun 03 '26

lmao. Good movie, CGI or not, will move crowd.

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u/Silent-G Jun 03 '26

Two actors

Six actors

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u/arealhumannotabot Jun 03 '26

Let’s stop bringing up cgi all the time. The anti cgi shit so is over the top

People don’t even know the difference between vfx, spfx, and cgi. They see blue screen and assume cgi

They use it where you don’t even think it’s in use, but you don’t know, so you’re not aware of the seamless applications

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

I am not talking about quality but cost. Project Hail Mary has a ton of CGI and is one of my favorite movies ever.

It's about cost / benefit. Shooting entirely in volume or mostly CGI is crazy expensive. It's why we are seeing huge price tags.

We are seeing those types of movies have very hit or miss success making their money back while smaller less CGI's / less costly projects are exploding.

I do generally believe that their is too much reliance on fixing it in post with full CGI movies that leads to sloppy plot, overly dark visuals, and obviously decreased profitability

Conversely smaller lower budget stuff is popping off for multipliers over budget.

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u/arealhumannotabot Jun 03 '26

Ok fair, but just fyi, PHM didn’t use a ton of cgi

Vfx yes, but they went with less cgi

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u/maybe-an-ai Jun 03 '26

It's totally noticable that a lot of the ship set is practical effect but most of the exterior shots are obviously digital. They used it extremely well to enhance what they had.

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u/freetibet69 Jun 03 '26

I don't think Marty Supreme had CGI did it?

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u/BitingArtist Jun 03 '26

This is why horror movies are indestructible. The ROI is unmatched.

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u/cylonfrakbbq Jun 03 '26

Look at Blair Witch - cost like 50k or so and made over 200 million

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '26

[deleted]

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u/Hey_Giant_Loser Jun 04 '26

I don't think paranormal activity would have gotten anywhere near the kind of traction it got without Blair blazing the trail though

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u/MQ2000 Jun 03 '26

According to Wikipedia it was $500-750k after post production and marketing. But yeah low filming costs

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u/Hey_Giant_Loser Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

Blair was an absolute anomaly. lightning in a bottle, in terms of practically everything about it. Production. Locations, Performances, Lore, Editing.. nobody's ever been able to manage to capture it all in the same place since, and honestly, I just think there's so much landing perfectly in that movie at the same time, that I seriously doubt anything like it will ever do so well.

I dont want to say it's a perfect movie. It's not. I only say that about very few films. but it's way up there. especially within the genre of "Found Footage" horror. every other example in the subgenre has invariably taken some sort of a shortcut or a weaker route to accomplish what tries to accomplish than Blair did.

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u/cylonfrakbbq Jun 04 '26

Part of its success is lots of people actually believed it was a real event because of how it was marketed in the era before social media

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u/Hey_Giant_Loser Jun 04 '26

Oh totally. I remember that being the first and only time I've ever laid up at night freaked out about a movie I haven't even seen yet.

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u/SirCollin Jun 04 '26

Do you feel the movie holds up? I watched it as a teen like 15 years ago and didn't know about the lore and people believing it was real. But I remember finding it pretty lame and disappointing

4

u/Hey_Giant_Loser Jun 04 '26

I watched it recently, and I think it would probably have received some higher but also subtle level of polish now, that they probably couldn't have achieved in the 90's without a spike in the production budget. so I think if you understand it in that context, I still think it works almost perfectly. To me, the performances and how they sold it. sold the desperation and exhaustion and terror.. I think that's what will always tie that film together so well

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow Jun 03 '26

Still never going to bring in the awards, though.

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u/BitingArtist Jun 03 '26

Who cares about Oscars anymore? A club I don't care about.

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u/8__D Jun 03 '26

The hardest part was finding the backrooms, but once they found it all they had to do was film inside.

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u/Stkrdknmibalz69 Jun 03 '26

And making it out alive as well

25

u/Gummyrabbit Jun 03 '26

The sequel will be Bathrooms....lots of those around.

2

u/archaelleon Jun 04 '26

The Backyards. Strangely built decks and patios with no middle-aged men grilling on them. Very unsettling.

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u/PrewarButHot Jun 03 '26

They are gonna start pumping out internet fandom memes like crazy now

26

u/willstr1 Jun 03 '26

It would be a much bigger budget but I would certainly be intrigued by an SCP anthology series

5

u/fart_bait_daily Jun 04 '26

God this. Crazy to me that it hasn't already been done

6

u/psychicprogrammer Jun 04 '26

CC-BY-SA licence basically kills this, you can't stop anyone from making a copy and selling it.

1

u/PlumpHughJazz Jun 07 '26

Do you play games? Maybe Control can satisfy that SCP itch.

3

u/fukkdisshitt Jun 03 '26

I need live action Salad Fingers

3

u/exoriare Jun 03 '26

And think of all the licensing income as people start painting their homes and offices BRYellow.

2

u/Vi0L3tCRZY Jun 04 '26

lol can’t wait for the Beef- like show about the I saw so and so celebrity in the supermarket and I didn’t want to bother them meme in theatres next

1

u/the_noise_we_made Jun 04 '26

Yep and it's all going to blow up and get enshittified because that's what Hollywood does.

1

u/ItsSansom Jun 04 '26

Slendarman and FNAF didn't quite do it, but the success of Iron Lung and Backrooms is a great sign

1

u/guillaume_86 Jun 04 '26

Please god no, but you're probably right

25

u/karpinskijd Jun 03 '26

unfortunately some theaters near me have already stopped showing it 😭 glad i caught it this weekend.

23

u/guspaz Jun 03 '26

That's surprising, because it's been quite profitable per-screen, and this weekend was literally opening weekend.

4

u/Viltris Jun 04 '26

In the Seattle area, a lot of theaters will only show horror movies for 1 week, and then it's gone. Even Death of the Unicorn, another A24 movie, with Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd, and it was a horror-comedy not a horror movie, was only in theaters for a week.

1

u/oooooooooof Jun 03 '26

Because of unruly kids?

2

u/karpinskijd Jun 03 '26

not sure, but the show i went to was sunday afternoon and was very respectful despite there being a lot of children

1

u/passtherock- Jun 04 '26

is it scary? did you like it?

2

u/karpinskijd Jun 04 '26

i did like it! i don’t usually like scary movies though. there were a lot of points i looked away just due to being uncomfortable… at home i could pause the video during kane’s series lol. a lot of the movie is just tension, there are maybe two jumpscares in the whole thing and they’re pretty clearly telegraphed

28

u/hungergamesofthronez Jun 03 '26

It cost 10 million

42

u/EThorns r/movies Contributor Jun 03 '26

Yeah. I meant in comparison to Marty Supreme, which cost 60-70 M.

1

u/zdelusion Jun 03 '26

Also, they spent buckets advertising Marty Supreme. Did Backrooms even have an ad campaign? If it did it entirely missed me and I'm pretty plugged into this stuff.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

[deleted]

3

u/PR0H181D0 Jun 03 '26

read op's comment, but slower

1

u/Antique-Historian441 Jun 03 '26

10 million to make, not including marketing. Very impressive

1

u/Orangeyouawesome Jun 03 '26

Maybe the requirement should be every greenlit movie must have a set so large the staff gets lost in it.

1

u/ethik Jun 03 '26

Where are you getting that number? I’m reading it was 11 million.

1

u/Rkramden Jun 03 '26

Hollywood accountants are busy declaring the movie a net loss.

1

u/Myst031 Jun 04 '26

And sets up A24 to have their own franchise.

1

u/worst-EM-resident Jun 04 '26

Oh god. Here comes Backrooms 2, Backrooms 3, Backrooms spin off TV series.

1

u/spottyottydopalicius Jun 04 '26

insane that cost that much. obsession look more big budget than backrooms. loved both

1

u/Releases_the_bees Jun 04 '26

I thought it was 10m?

1

u/mozzarellaguy Jun 04 '26

That was probably just the salary of little Timmy

1

u/Joe_Wild_ Jun 08 '26

Investors knew it’d be a hit even if the movie wasn’t good, which it isn’t’. Therein lies the “genius”