‘Backrooms’ Heads for $90 Million Opening as Horror Beats ‘Star Wars’ at Box Office

If you are looking for a paradigm shift in Hollywood, this weekend’s box office may be it. A24/Chernin’s “Backrooms” and Focus Features’ “Obsession,” two buzzy non-franchise horror films directed by YouTube-trained Gen Z filmmakers Kane Parsons and Curry Barker, are reigning atop the box office while the former box office titan “Star Wars” is seeing a steep 69% second weekend drop for its latest film “The Mandalorian and Grogu.”

“Backrooms” earned an excellent $38.4 million opening day from 3,442 locations, and is now projected by industry estimates for a stunning $90 million opening weekend that ranks as the third highest domestic opening ever for a horror film behind the $117 million opening of “It” in 2017 and the $91 million of “It: Chapter Two” in 2019.

It is also more than triple the highest opening weekend ever for A24, blasting past the previous record of $25.5 million set by “Civil War” in 2024. Presales and interest in the film skyrocketed over the past week, especially after critics gave the film strong reviews with a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score.

The only slight blemish against “Backrooms” is that audiences weren’t quite as enthusiastic as critics, giving the film a B- on CinemaScore and a 74% audience RT score. But even if that means “Backrooms” ends up being more frontloaded than “Obsession,” this opening weekend is enough to make this a massive win for A24 and its producers, which include Peter Chernin’s North Road Films, Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps and James Wan’s Atomic Monster, the latter of which is now merged with “Obsession” co-producer Blumhouse.

And speaking of “Obsession,” the arrival of “Backrooms” has done absolutely nothing to halt its historic box office run as it has increased its weekend grosses yet again by 19% to $28 million this weekend, blasting past $100 million in domestic grosses. With this strong of a hold against a direct horror competitor — possibly with fans of the genre seeing both “Obsession” and “Backrooms” as a double feature — there is nothing stopping Curry Barker’s film from passing $200 million domestic and passing recent horror hits like “Weapons” and “Final Destination: Bloodlines.”

And then there’s “Mandalorian and Grogu” in the No. 3 spot with an industry estimated $24 million second weekend, a staggering 70% drop from its $81.7 3-day Memorial Day weekend opening. It was expected that the feature follow-up to the hit Disney+ series could be a strong family play, and theatrical sources say that has been the case. But general audience turnout, particularly among the under-30 crowd, is sagging due to the competition from the two horror films conquering the marketplace.

Farther down the charts, Sony/TriStar’s “The Breadwinner” is opening in fifth with a $7.3 million launch from 3,252 locations, sitting behind the $12.6 million sixth weekend of Lionsgate/Universal’s “Michael,” which has passed $800 million worldwide.

Starring Nate Bargatze, “The Breadwinner” got panned by critics with a 29% RT score but has won over a family-heavy audience with an A- on CinemaScore and u 87% audience score. Sony is hoping that word-of-mouth will allow the film to leg out in the weeks ahead, particularly with families in the central and southern U.S. where Bargatze’s brand of family-oriented comedy has especially taken root.

Also opening is Focus Features’ “Pressure,” a WWII drama starring Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser which is opening to $5.4 million from 1,829 locations. Aimed at seniors and cinephiles, the film has Rotten Tomatoes scores of 86% critics and 94% audience.