Backrooms, which is based on a very popular creepypasta (internet-based urban legend), always looked set for an impressive box office debut, but a B- CinemaScore and 74% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes seemed to indicate that ticket sales may not reflect the pre-release buzz.
The A24 movie, which was helmed by 20-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons, was expected to take in between $40M and $45M this weekend, and has made over $38 million on Friday alone (including pre-shows).
This gives Backrooms the third biggest horror movie opening day of all time, behind It ($50.4M) and Five Nights at Freddy's ($39.6M), as well as the second highest debut of the year, beating The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Project Hail Mary, and The Mandalorian and Grogu (it's just behind Michael).
Domestic opening weekend estimates have now shot up to $80M - $90M. Not a bad start for an indie horror flick with a budget of $10 million!
The story focuses on Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who discovers a seemingly endless maze of rooms, tunnels and corridors in the basement of the furniture showroom where he works.
“I didn't know anything about the Backrooms at the beginning of this process,” Ejiofor admitted in a recent interview. “I knew a little bit about liminal spaces or I'd heard a bit about liminal spaces, and then received all the information about the script, and then got introduced to Kane's work. My first impression really was that it was itching at something that was… and I think this is what has been the experience of a lot of people… is that it sort of talks to something that has always kind of been there, but you haven't been able to fully articulate that. Just that idea that's just out of reach of why these spaces are so kind of unsettling, and then to really dive in there and explore it. It just felt like this incredibly rich, unique world and sort of pocket of the world that could be expanded and exploded in the way that it is."
Curry Barker's Obsession slips to second place with $8.1M on its third Friday in theatres, and is now on track for a $29M weekend. This would mark a 20% jump from last weekend.
The news is not as positive for Disney/Lucasfilm's The Mandalorian and Grogu, which now sits at third place after taking in just $6.5 million on its second Friday in theatres for a 70% drop.
The hope was that positive word-of-mouth might benefit the Jon Favreau-directed adventure, but there's a possibility that TMAG could finish its theatrical run as the lowest-grossing Star Wars movie of the modern era.