"Backrooms" is now A24's highest-grossing film ever Surpassing the $191 million gross of Marty Supreme

Released in Italian cinemas on May 27 and in U.S. theaters on May 29, Backrooms has become the highest-grossing film in A24's history after just ten days in theaters. With $212.6 million earned worldwide, the film has surpassed the previous record held by Marty Supreme, which stood at $191.2 million. The result firmly establishes the cinematic adaptation of the viral IP created by Kane Parsons as a new cult classic within the horror and creepypasta genres, eclipsing what only a few months ago seemed to be the studio's unbeatable title.

During its second weekend in theaters, Backrooms ranked third at the global box office, earning an additional $50.1 million across 52 markets: $25.9 million in North America and $24.1 million internationally. A true box-office hit that continues to dominate theaters around the world, leaving little else to do but document its remarkable string of achievements.

From the United States to the Rest of the World

The story of Backrooms is that of a YouTube-born phenomenon that successfully made its way into cinemas worldwide, transforming an internet-born imaginary world into a global cultural event and helping redefine the boundaries of the creepypasta genre. The film's total gross in the United States and Canada reached $135 million, while international markets contributed an additional $77.6 million. Starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, the film also delivered the best opening weekend ever for an A24 release in both Malaysia and the Philippines.

Among its most notable achievements is Spain, where Backrooms claimed the number one spot at the box office with $2 million, outperforming all competitors. Even more significant was its performance in Latin America, which generated $24.2 million and made the film the highest-grossing A24 title ever released in the region. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the film achieved not only the best opening weekend for an A24 production, but also the biggest horror debut of the year. With more than $3 million earned during its second weekend and a third-place ranking overall, the film's UK total has reached $11.6 million.

New Records and the Fall of "Marty Supreme"

Until only a few months ago, it seemed impossible to imagine a film capable of surpassing Marty Supreme, buoyed by the presence of Timothée Chalamet and a long awards-season run that culminated in nine Academy Award nominations. Yet Backrooms has quickly reshaped that narrative. In Australia and New Zealand, the film has already overtaken Marty Supreme, becoming A24's biggest success ever in the region with a combined gross of $7.9 million. South Korea has also delivered extraordinary results: the film dropped only 11% from its opening weekend, bringing its total to $5.7 million and setting a new record for the studio in the country.

Less than a year after its previous milestone, A24 has once again surpassed itself. Backrooms is expected to further strengthen its lead, definitively moving beyond the $191.2 million earned by Marty Supreme and becoming the highest-grossing film in the studio's history. The achievement appears even more significant considering the film experienced a sharp decline during its second weekend in North America (-68%), a drop largely attributed to the title's strongly fan-driven nature, with approximately 81% of second-weekend audiences being under the age of 35.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this achievement is the speed with which it was accomplished. Backrooms took just ten days to become the highest-grossing film in A24's history. By comparison, Marty Supreme required 53 days to surpass the previous record held by Everything Everywhere All at Once, which ended its worldwide theatrical run with $147.9 million. Just six days after its release, Backrooms had already become the studio's highest-grossing domestic release ever. The result is even more impressive when considering the relationship between costs and revenue: the film's production budget was below $10 million, while its U.S. marketing campaign cost only a few tens of millions. This figure is considerably lower than the overall investment required for Marty Supreme, whose production budget was estimated at around $60 million, excluding additional marketing expenses.

From Internet Phenomenon to Cinematic Case Study

While Backrooms could rely on a passionate community built over the years around the online phenomenon, its success was far from guaranteed. The greatest challenge lay in translating an imaginary world born and developed through the languages of the internet into a feature film. The Backrooms belong to a form of storytelling that is deeply rooted in online culture: fragmented, fueled by theories, amateur videos, forums, and user-generated content. It is a universe whose power largely stems from ambiguity, the absence of definitive explanations, and the sense of authenticity typical of digital productions.

The risk was that, once adapted for the big screen, this universe would lose part of its aura. The conventions of cinema, the increase in production scale, and the need to transform a diffuse and ever-evolving mythology into a cohesive narrative could easily have dissolved the very elements that made the Backrooms a global cultural phenomenon. Yet the opposite happened. The film managed to preserve the identity of its source material without sacrificing the demands of large-scale filmmaking, transforming a phenomenon born in the furthest corners of YouTube into an international cinematic event. In this sense, the success of Backrooms represents not only a commercial milestone for A24, but also one of the most significant recent examples of how a mythology born online can survive, and even expand, when transitioning into a more structured and traditional industry such as cinema.