Backrooms and Obsession have quickly become two of the biggest hits of 2026, as well as some of the most profitable, in terms of their budget. Let’s look at the latter of the two. Reportedly, Obsession had a budget that, at its highest estimates, was around 1 million dollars. As of the time of this writing, it has grossed $156 million. The math there is pretty easy to figure out that it’s made 156 times its budget. If The Mandalorian and Grogu wanted to see that kind of profit return, the film would have to make 25.7 billion from its budget of 165 million. Someone needs to wake up and take a good look around the Hollywood landscape.
Hollywood production companies have been guilty of so many mistakes that have cost them billions on failed projects. Even though there will never be a pattern to 100% predict successful films, it’s nevertheless staggering to see how out of touch so many companies are. Why else do you think we’re getting so many pictures that make you say, “Who asked for this?” Turns out, nobody asked for it; Hollywood just believed that audiences wanted it.
That’s one of the reasons we got the video game horror adaptation this year of Return to Silent Hill. It seemed like everything was adding up. People were nostalgic for the first Silent Hill film, so let’s bring back the director of that film, Christophe Gans. People love the game Silent Hill 2, so let’s base the film on that story. Video game films are all in vogue now, too! How can we lose? The movie was shit. But at least the budget was only $23 million, so it didn’t have to make a WHOLE lot to see a profit, and it didn’t have much to lose if it flopped. The same can’t be said for The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Backrooms & Obsession
Meanwhile, here sits Backrooms and Obsession. Both are films by young directors who got their start on YouTube. Both have brought films to life with small budgets and big box office returns. They’re also both horror films. If we throw in Markiplier‘s film Iron Lung, which wasn’t quite as successful but still highly profitable, we have three films that fit these criteria. None of these things is directly related to the success of their projects. Yet these are the things that Hollywood will probably take away from all this and manage to chase the wrong trends.
Success is almost never just the result of one specific thing. There are some exceptions to this, but those are the lightning-in-a-bottle moments. So what should big production companies be learning? How are these films pushing such huge returns on investment that bigger films aren’t?
1. It Begins With A Premise and an Understanding
Some people will call it the “elevator pitch,” but that’s not really a fair statement. We’re talking about the concept that the idea for something should be so short and simple that you could tell it to someone on an elevator ride. What’s more fair to say is you want to have a premise that draws someone in to want to hear what happens. Sure, making movies is a business for producers and distributors, but for the public, it’s storytelling. People want to hear a good story, and most good stories start with an interesting premise.
Obsession – A man makes a wish that the girl he likes will be madly in love with him. It goes terribly, terribly wrong.
Backrooms – A man finds a mysterious doorway that brings him into a bizarre world of seemingly perpetual liminal space.
Those concepts are easy to understand and make you want to hear what happens next. They don’t require knowing a game, reading a book, or having seen previous films; none of that is at play. This is just a story that’s going to be told, and you just have to decide whether it’s something you want to hear or not. It’s like sitting around a campfire with friends and asking them if they want to hear a story. You form that kind of agreement, and it’s no more or less complicated than that.
2. Understanding Fatigue
Going along with the campfire analogy, how would you feel if someone kept telling the same type of story over and over again? After a while, you would get sick of it. It’s so easy to see that and picture that on a person-to-person level, but the film industry as a whole can’t grasp that concept when it comes to their work. People got burnt out on superhero movies. We saw that in 2025 with Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Even with a reduced output in films for Marvel and DC, these movies did not perform nearly as well as either studio had hoped. They were both FAR removed from the billion-dollar-plus returns that Warner Bros. and Disney hoped for.
It’s getting boring, that’s all. People don’t need anymore origin stories of superheroes. People don’t want to see these worlds over and over again. Of course, some characters have a bit more immunity to that, like Spider-Man and Batman, but those are the exceptions. The same thing happened with the string of young adult novels getting turned into films. Eventually, that bubble burst wide open to the point of diminishing returns. Remember the adaptation of The Giver? You probably don’t, but it came out in 2014 alongside adaptations of the Divergent series. That franchise dried up at the box office after the third film, Allegiant barely made more than it cost to make.
What’s Different?
What we’re seeing with indie projects like Obsession and Backrooms is films that have their own unique identity and are refreshing to watch. They stand out for being different and not part of some trend. Even with Backrooms having its own YouTube series, the film is not a retread of what was already told. It’s a story that ties in with the whole lore and aesthetic, but it’s not necessary to watch any of the series to digest the film. Obsession, meanwhile, takes the age-old “be careful what you wish for” premise and runs with it to create its own tale of love, lust, magic, violence, and psychological horror.
The lesson is not to make more movies just like these, it’s to make more movies that are unique unto themselves.
3. Avoiding Overexposed Actors
With all due respect to Pedro Pascal, I’m sick of seeing him pop up in projects. That is not a slight against him, as he is a wonderful actor. He’s entertaining, he’s fun, and I don’t need to see his face in a film again for a long time. The overexposure is ridiculous. The same is true for Sydney Sweeney. Even throw Dwayne Johnson into that mix. For a while, Johnny Depp was in that category too. Did Scarlett Johansson really need to be in that Jurassic Park movie last year? Does she need to be in the upcoming The Exorcist?
Between the casts of Obsession and Backrooms, the biggest name actor is Chiwetel Ejiofor. He’s an amazingly talented actor who is far from overexposed. Seeing fresh faces in casts adds something new and gives an element of potential. Even using character actors who are seldom leading roles but are incredible supports can work in this capacity. You might see them pop up in things all over the place, but their experience lends something to the project instead of becoming the project. They know how to help other talent shine.
Not to mention, it helps a production hire lesser-known actors when they can’t afford to book bigger names. That leads directly into the fourth point.
4. Smaller Budgets
Money ruins so much. This was hinted at before when we discussed the gross of Return to Silent Hill. It wasn’t a hugely budgeted film, so when it failed to do well at the box office, it didn’t lose THAT much. Compare that with 2024’s Joker: Folie à Deux. Holy crap, did that lose money hand over fist, with a budget of around $200 million, it only made about that much back. That’s a TREMENDOUS loss. Some peg the failure at costing Warner Bros. over $140 million.
It largely holds true; the more money a studio has invested in a film, the more the studio is motivated to tinker with the film. This isn’t always the case, but it is more often than not. Focus testing, reshoots, making the film friendly to the “four quadrants” of demographics, homogenizing the content, wanting more humor in the script; these are all things that larger budget films are subjected to in hopes that they make more money. SOMETIMES, this can work. More often, it’s just making a situation worse.
The best movie you can make is the one that intrigues people. It’s not one that a studio thinks people want to see. A well-made film doesn’t have to have something for everyone; it just has to appeal to the right group of people who want to see it. If you make it good enough for them, word of mouth will often get them to bring others to see it. That’s what’s happening with Obsession. It’s one of the very few films to actually take in larger amounts of money after its premiere weekend, based on positive feedback from people who watched it.
What’s Different?
Focus Features let Curry Barker direct, write, and edit the film that he wanted to make. That gives it an authenticity that audiences have clearly responded to. They took a chance at letting him do his thing. And what if he had failed? The film only cost, at most, around a million to make. Even if literally no one saw it, it still would’ve lost only a fraction of the amount that Joker: Folie à Deux lost for Warner Bros. It’s a chance that’s well worth taking and proves that a big budget is not necessary for big returns.
5. Passion for Storytelling
Barker, Markiplier, and Backrooms director Kane Parsons clearly are passionate about the stories they’re telling. That doesn’t always translate to good storytelling. Let’s not mistake passion for talent, as there’s a HUGE line between those things. However, it just so happens that these three men have passion and talent enough to draw an audience. Their goal was to make a movie that they wanted to tell, and they did so. The story came first; the success and potential for profit were added benefits.
Too often in the machinery of Hollywood, movies are being created not because someone feels a story needs to be told but because they feel someone will pay to see the story. Just like with passion and talent, those are two very different things. It’s far too early to tell if Barker, Markiplier, and Parsons will be able to continue to chart success. For every Orson Welles wunderkind, there’s a Michael Cimino or Josh Trank. But passion is something that the audience can feel and endear themselves to.
Again, there’s no guaranteed way to know and predict what films are going to make it big. Audiences can be fickle, tastes can change, and surprises will forever exist. But the points addressed here are valid reasons for why we’re seeing these indie films blow up in a good way, and tentpole franchises blow up in a bad way. Hopefully, this is the start of a trend that can carry films into a better place of originality and make people want to keep going to the theater.
