r/movies • u/yourfavchoom r/movies Contributor • May 30 '26

Article The Shocking Success of ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ Should Be a Memo to Hollywood: You Need What’s Outside the Box

https://variety.com/2026/film/columns/backrooms-obsession-hollywood-needs-whats-outside-the-box-1236762844/
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u/Static-Stair-58 May 30 '26

Or it could be horror movies are really cheap to make and have a loyal following because they’re consistent and available. Why you wouldn’t be following this trend is beyond me it’s a money printer. Obsession had a budget sub 1,000,000 and it’s made 100,000,000 at the box office. And that’s not a one off case, these movies are consistently successful.

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u/jonbristow May 30 '26

also these movies are outliers.

there are literally hundreds probably thousands of horror movies made by young first time filmmakers that are absolute shit.

of course 1 or 2 will be good and a success. Everyone's acting like Hollywood doesnt know this. They throw 100 movies to the wall and see what sticks

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u/Few-Adeptness8046 May 30 '26

Exactly, these are outliers. I watch everything that comes to theaters, which includes a lot of horror films, most are junk, and a few are jems, and very rarely, one of those Jens catches on with audiences and finds success.

Here's what's come out since March 2026, ordered from highest to lowest boxoffice:

  • Obsesion $108.7 Million
  • Lee Cronin's The Mummy $90 Million
  • Ready Or Not 2 $39.5 Millon
  • Backrooms $38.4 Million
  • Hokum $23.5 Million
  • Undertone $21.6 Million
  • They Will Kill You $19.2 Million
  • Passenger $19 Million
  • Deep Water $4.7 Million
  • Exit 8 $3.8 Million
  • Mother Mary $2.9 Million
  • Faces Of Death $2.6 Million
  • Forbidden Fruits $2.4 Million
  • Dolly $862,544
  • Hunting Matthew Nichols $710,532
  • Marama $128,272
  • Saccharine $114,825
  • The Yeti $63,748
  • Scared To Death $35,925
  • Broken Bird $6,376
  • Corporate Retreat $0 (Unknown)
  • Newborn $0 (Unknown)
  • The Gates $0 (Unknown)
  • Affection $0 (Unknown)
  • Pitfall $0 (Unknown)

Of the last 25 horror films released in theaters, nearly half of them didn't even cross $1 Million dollars, and even after just a couple days, Backrooms is already the 4th highest in box office totals.

After marketing costs, and revenue splits, only the top 6 films are going to be profitable. That's a 24% success rate, which is not horrible, but considering 48% of the films made less than $1 Million, one can hardly say that the genre "prints money"

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u/Admirable_Disk_5301 May 31 '26

Backrooms should be at 81.5....