These days, movies clear $100 million at the box office pretty regularly. What used to be considered an undeniable benchmark of success is no longer that, and, in fact, oftentimes a film can gross over $100 million now and still be seen as a disappointment. However, those movies usually cost well over $100 million to make. If a movie that cost, say, $10 million achieves it, $100 million once again feels like an incredible milestone. And, if that movie does it in under a week? It’s mind-blowing.
That’s the kind of success that the new film Backrooms is experiencing. After a record-setting opening weekend of about $81 million (which, coincidentally, is about how many views the original Backrooms video has on YouTube), the film has added to that total and will cross $100 million on Wednesday, less than a week into release. The number makes it A24’s highest-grossing movie ever domestically (passing last year’s hit, Marty Supreme) and sets it up to be maybe the distributor’s highest-grossing film ever worldwide.
Internationally speaking, it only has to beat Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, which grossed about $148 million, and Marty Supreme, the current record holder at $191 million. Both of which are not just achievable. They are inevitable.
Much has been said (even right here on this very website) about what this, and the simultaneous success of Obsession, all means. Is it the dawn of a new era of cinema? Is it the next generation of filmgoers finally embracing its own franchises? Maybe and maybe. But the simplest, factual takeaways are as follows. Backrooms was an economical film with a catchy hook and recognizable name brand that excited younger audiences and intrigued those who didn’t know about it. It then got mostly positive reviews, which built word of mouth. The whole thing is a near-perfect storm of everything studios want in their products. Low risk, high reward, and near-infinite possibilities for the future.
How high can the film go? Well, competition at the box office gets stiff in this second weekend with Scary Movie and Masters of the Universe. Then there’s Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, Toy Story 5, and Supergirl, just to name a few. So, clearly, Backrooms isn’t going to gross more than its opening total during its second week. How could it after such a weekend? But it is going to hang around in the top 10, as there’s very little like it out there. And we’d imagine a $200 million domestic gross is incredibly possible.
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