© A24 / courtesy Everett Collection
Published Jun 6, 2026, 11:52 AM EDT
Brennan Klein (he/him) is a senior news writer at Screen Rant, host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast, and contributor at Alternate Ending and Horror Press. He has been writing and podcasting about pop culture (especially horror movies) for over a decade at platforms including Blumhouse, Fangoria, Dread Central, The Backlot, and Arrow in the Head.
This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.
Obsession and Backrooms are having entirely different weekends as the summer blockbuster season begins.
May 2026 was dominated by the massive horror hits, both of which are debut features from YouTubers that scored major box office records. Curry Barker's Obsession, which follows a wish gone wrong that turns a young man's (Michael Johnston) crush (Inde Navarratte) into a violent stalker, became the first non-holiday release since 1982 to have two consecutive weekends earn more than the previous weekend. Two weekends later, Kane Parsons' Backrooms, about a furniture store owner (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovering an infinite series of interconnected rooms, earned the biggest domestic debut in history both for A24 and for an original horror movie.
Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, Backrooms is projected to earn a 3-day total of $25.7 million at the domestic box office during its sophomore weekend, which is a huge 68% slump from its record-shattering debut weekend. While horror movies are frequently frontloaded and often have huge sophomore drops of 60% or more, this will still marks one of the 300 worst sophomore drops of all time if those numbers hold.
Meanwhile, Obsession is only projected to drop 9%. This is the first time that the movie has earned less than the weekend before, in addition to breaking the record for the best weekend 4 retention for a horror movie after 1999's The Blair Witch Project. The found footage smash hit, which is one of the most profitable movies of all time, ultimately grossed $248.6 million against a budget of less than $1 million.
More to come...
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Release Date May 15, 2026
Runtime 108 minutes
Director Curry Barker
Writers Curry Barker
Producers Christian Mercuri, James Harris, Roman Viaris, Haley Nicole Johnson
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Release Date May 27, 2026
Runtime 110 minutes
Director Kane Parsons
Writers Will Soodik
Producers Chris Ferguson, Dan Cohen, Dan Levine, James Wan, Jenno Topping, Kori Adelson, Michael Clear, Osgood Perkins, Peter Chernin, Roberto Patino, Shawn Levy
This article covers a developing story. Continue to check back with us as we will be adding more information as it becomes available.
English (US) ·