The A24 horror film Backrooms has gathered so much momentum over the last month that it could defeat Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu in its debut weekend at the box office. The latest predictions for the sci-fi psychological thriller, directed by the 20-year-old Kane Parsons (who is prominently known as Kane Pixels on YouTube), are surprised by its presale numbers, as theaters are reportedly scrambling to add more screening times for the film.
Based on a creepypasta about a liminal space made out of disturbing, yellow, office-like corridors, Backrooms follows furniture store owner Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who tells his therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve) about his discovery of the mind-bending dimension, only to disappear into the labyrinthine hallways himself. Backrooms is slated to arrive on May 29, 2026, with many cinemas are offering special screenings for the film on May 28.
Backrooms is exceeding expectations in latest box office predictions
The highest box office prediction for Backrooms has it earning $45 million to $55 million in its domestic opener from May 29 to May 31. That would be higher than the projected $30 million to $35 million for Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu in its sophomore week.
These predictions come from a May 27 forecast from BoxOffice Pro, though other box office experts have arrived to similar conclusions. Variety expects that Backrooms will rake in $40 million to $50 million, over own projection of $40 million for the Star Wars spinoff that it expects to have “a standard 50% decline from its debut.” More or less agreeing with this assessment is Deadline, which has the A24 breakout earning $40 million to $45 million and believes that The Mandalorian & Grogu will land near the $40 million mark.
In fact, Deadline notes that the presales for Backrooms “are on the level of Scream 7 per distribution sources.” While Scream 7 had a domestic opener of $63 million, it warns that “it’s expected that Backrooms will be front-loaded.” This assessment is shared by BoxOfficeTheory in its May 22 forecast, which is encouraged by the upward trend for Backrooms but is “cautioning not to read too heavily into highly robust pre-sale trends quite yet as there is still an element of potential front-loading by source material fans.”
Still, BoxOfficePro notes that these opening weekend numbers for Backrooms “have more than doubled” since its original long-range forecast for the film. When tracking initially started for the horror flick at the beginning of May, it had a much lower outlook of $14.5 million to $27 million for its domestic start. The site believes that the horror movie could “potentially outperform” its current forecast and “reach up to the $65 million mark,” which would put it on par with the $64 million from Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Interestingly, a bet on Polymarket has 65% of people believing that Backrooms will earn more than $61 million in its domestic start.
That said, if Backrooms is able to claim the top spot at the box office this weekend, Parsons will be become the youngest filmmaker in history to achieve this feat, a record previously held by director Josh Trank, who was 27 years old when his found-footage film Chronicle released in 2012. Beyond that, Backrooms will only need to cross the $25.5 million mark at the domestic box office to break the record for any film from A24. And with the trajectory that Backrooms is following, it could become the highest-grossing A24 film of all time over Marty Supreme’s $191 million worldwide haul.
At the time of writing, Backrooms has earned a high 86% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 73 score on Metacritic. ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim gave the movie a 6 out of 10 in his review, saying that it is “not one of the year’s best horror movies, but there is a lot to appreciate about this first-time director’s approach to the genre.”
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