Backrooms has been such a big hit for Hollywood, and the way in which the movie came about always threatened to upend the status quo. It was, for most people, a niche concept that really only connected with Gen Z and maybe some younger millennials. Older moviegoers would not have had any familiarity with the concept, which was a bold and refreshing swing.

But it goes even further than that. It’s not just that the concept of the backrooms is an Internet thing that only those who are chronically online will be well-versed in. It’s also that the concept travelled pretty much every channel before becoming a movie, and now, Hollywood is desperate to find all other examples for future projects.

Backrooms Started a Trend that Hollywood Wants to Continue

In the early 2000s, someone snapped a photo of a department store that was transitioning into something else. In the late 2010s, that photo was posted to 4chan, an anonymous image-posting site, with a caption discussing how it just felt “off.”

It snowballed from there. The concept of these backrooms took off, and they became social media lore, video games, short films, and now a feature-length film from A24, of all places. What was once just a random image from the early 2000s has gone through almost every medium to get to Hollywood.

Ultimately, though, it’s an internet concept that has gone as far as it can possibly go. Of course, there’s plenty of room for Backrooms sequels, which Kane Parsons, who directed the movie and ran the series of short films on YouTube, is set to do for A24.

But what other random, internet-based concepts could possibly follow that same trajectory? What nonsense is sitting on message boards or image-posting sites that might be viable for a movie someday? Who knows, but Hollywood intends to find out.

Much of the Backrooms debate, both before and after the movie’s creation, was on Reddit. So, that’s where the film industry is turning to find the next undiscovered gem. If there’s another niche IP that’s ready to explode as the backrooms did, it’ll be on Reddit.

“[Reddit is] almost a real-time IP incubator of sorts, with moderators and communities that are cultivating these spaces where stories and fandoms can grow organically,” Jim Squires, chief marketing officer of Reddit, told The Hollywood Reporter.

In fact, this is already happening as we speak. The report from THR says that agencies have already identified multiple subreddits and short stories online that they believe could be fleshed out into full-length movies. There’s even a movie in development starring Sydney Sweeney that originated as a short story on Reddit.

“Ultimately, if [a studio or producer has] an idea and they want to develop it, like the Sydney Sweeney idea, that’s for them to ultimately reach out to the moderators and the right people on the platform to do that, and they do those deals directly, but we will help facilitate when needed,” Squires added.

The hype behind Backrooms and its horror counterpart, Obsession, seems to be unique and won’t be replicated any time soon. That isn’t stopping Hollywood from trying to recreate it, much like they tried to recreate the Barbenheimer phenomenon from 2023. Time will tell if they’re successful this time.

Conclusion

Backrooms came about in such a way that you would imagine is difficult to replicate. You just can’t manufacture the phenomenon that preceded the movie. It took years of organic work online to get into the mainstream and attract creatives. Yet, Hollywood is going to try and spot more instances where this is happening, thereby changing how movies are made forever.