Blumhouse chief Jason Blum says horror is back in a big way, comparing today’s box-office buzz for “Backrooms” and “Obsession” to the 1970s—and pointing to non-traditional, YouTube-trained directors as the driving force.
Jason Blum didn’t talk about horror like it was a niche anymore. At the Produced By Conference on Saturday, the Blumhouse chief looked at what’s happening at the box office and said it feels like “the 1970s all over again.”
“’Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession’ are edgy and weird and f–king nuts, and to me, there’s almost this feeling of the ’70s, of this new generation of young people who are making edgy movies that are connecting in theaters in a crazy way,” Blum said.
His excitement is tied to two buzzy. non-franchise horror releases currently reigning atop the box office: A24/Chernin’s “Backrooms” and Focus Features’ “Obsession.” Blum described both films as “a new kind of movie. ” adding that they’re “made by non-traditional directors. ” specifically “directors who really honed their skills as creators online.”.
The numbers behind that enthusiasm are hard to ignore. “Backrooms” earned an opening day total of $38.4 million from 3. 442 locations. and industry projections place its opening weekend at $90 million—an opening that would rank as the third highest domestic opening ever for a horror film. Only “It” (2017) with a $117 million opening and “It: Chapter Two” (2019) with a $91 million opening are higher.
Then there’s “Obsession,” which has kept pulling in more business even after launch. This weekend, its weekend grosses increased yet again by 20% to $28 million. That momentum has pushed it past $100 million in domestic grosses.
Blum singled out that unusual pattern of growth. “’Obsession’ this weekend went up 20 percent from last weekend,” he said. “Last weekend it went 30 percent up from the opening weekend. No movie has done that, has gone up two weekends in a row since ‘E.T.’ It is unbelievable.”
The throughline is clear in how the figures move: “Backrooms” is sprinting into weekend numbers with a major debut, while “Obsession” is showing a rare second-wave lift—both driven, in Blum’s telling, by a generation of creators using unconventional paths to find an in-theater audience.
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