Backrooms Box Office Skyrockets, Beating The Mandalorian With Debut That Shatters Records For A24 & 2026 Horror (Domestic Top 5)

The Backrooms may be empty, but movie theaters are full.

The buzzy new A24 horror movie was directed by 20-year-old filmmaker Kane Parsons, adapting his creepypasta web series of the same, and follows the discovery of a potentially infinite series of creepy, largely empty yellow rooms in the basement of a furniture store. 2026’s Backrooms boasts a small but star-studded cast that includes Oscar nominees Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, Emmy winner Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, and Avan Jogia. It made a splash ahead of its May 29 debut by earning a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 90%.

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, Backrooms is expected to hit a 3-day total of $81 million at the domestic box office by the end of its opening weekend. It has been rocketing past its early projections. Box Office Theory had its estimated debut set between $30 and $45 million as of May 21, rising to $50 to $68 million as of May 27 and then (per Deadline) $76 to $79 million as of May 29.

This dazzling number has secured it a spot at No. 1 at the domestic box office over the weekend, earning more than three times the sophomore frame of last weekend’s No. 1 title, The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is only expected to earn $25 million this weekend, a harsh week-on-week drop of 70% (the worst ever for Star Wars). It is expected to crash and burn at No. 3, falling behind the sleeper horror hit Obsession, which is in the middle of its own spectacular run. The sleeper hit is expected to climb a nearly unprecedented 10% this weekend with $26.4 million after earning the smallest week 2 drop in horror history, rising 39.3% from its debut. It has become the first non-holiday release to rise over two consecutive weekends since 1982.

Back to Backrooms. It will earn the best domestic opening weekend so far for a 2026 horror movie, greatly outdoing the massive franchise hit Scream 7 ($63.6 million), which was previously the only horror movie of the year to debut higher than $20 million (including Obsession, which opened to the tune of $17.2 million).

In fact, Backrooms is set to earn the biggest debut for A24 in the studio’s history as well as the fourth-best domestic debut of 2026 across all genres, beating The Devil Wears Prada 2 ($76.6 million) and Project Hail Mary ($80.5 million) and drawing even with The Mandalorian and Grogu ($81.6 million). It has also fallen behind the megahit music biopic Michael ($97.2 million) and the animated video game adaptation sequel The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($131.7 million).

This stellar debut for Backrooms sees director Kane Parsons becoming the latest YouTuber to make a splash with big-screen horror. Obsession, which is set to pass the $100 million domestic milestone this weekend (more than 133 times its reported $750,000 budget), was helmed by sketch comedian Curry Barker, while “Let’s Play” video icon Markiplier’s horror game adaptation Iron Lung earned $51.2 million against a reported $3 million earlier this year and viral film critic Chris Stuckmann’s movie Shelby Oaks grossed $8.1 million against $1.4 million in late 2025.

This Weekend’s Domestic Box Office Top 5

Below, see the full domestic Top 5 chart for the weekend:

The only other new release to debut in the Top 5 is the Nate Bargatze family comedy The Breadwinner, which hit No. 5 with an underwhelming $7.6 million, considering its reported $25 million budget. Meanwhile, the new Brendan Fraser World War II movie Pressure debuted at No. 7 with $5.4 million, which marks the best debut for a movie featuring the star in a lead role since 2014’s The Nut Job.

With two new movies on the board, two holdover titles have been pushed from the Top 5. Those would be The Sheep Detectives, which fell from No. 5 to No. 8 in its fourth weekend, and The Devil Wears Prada 2, which fell from No. 4 to No. 6 in its fifth weekend. While not every movie is performing well in the post-Memorial Day frame, the superb performance of both Obsession and Backrooms sees horror holding down the fort until the summer blockbuster season can begin in earnest next weekend.

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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