Kane Parsons' Backrooms opened to $38 million on Friday and is tracking toward $90 million for the weekend, destroying A24's previous opening weekend record of $25.5 million set by Alex Garland's Civil War. It also beat The Mandalorian and Grogu's $33.7 million opening day, a film that cost $165 million to make.
Backrooms cost an estimated $10 million. That budget-to-return ratio is the real story here. A24 built a blockbuster from a YouTube creator's viral internet horror concept and spent almost nothing doing it.
The full piece breaks down the comparative weekend numbers against Mandalorian, which finished at $81.6 million total, and gets into what this means for A24's positioning against studio tentpoles. Worth reading if you care about where franchise money is actually going.
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