The A24 horror movie Backrooms tells a start-to-finish story: A troubled man (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers a portal to a mysterious, seemingly endless space, and finds something there that changes his life. But by the end of the film, it’s clear this experience is just one among many. And the events in this movie potentially set up endless other Backrooms stories. So is Backrooms 2 on the way?
Twenty-year-old director Kane Parsons — who’s been making virally popular Backrooms-related videos for his YouTube channel since 2022 — tells Polygon he has a much larger storyline planned out.
“[Sequels are] more than an option — it’s been the intention since 2022,” Parsons says. “I went as far as I could with the YouTube series. [Making a feature film] became an option — I thought it’d be a much slower road to get to where things are now. This film is the first part in what I would desire to be several narrative steps, in terms of approaching what I consider to be the true heart of the idea. I just don’t think you could get to it in the time you have for a single movie.”
Parsons didn’t want to reveal how many movies he’d need to tell the entire story he has in mind, “because so many things can fluctuate.” But he’d like to see the first movie expand into a series of films, with enough of an anthology flavor that it could potentially move away from horror.
“A series would be my dream scenario, personally,” he says. “I think that’s the most practical way to narratively get what you want. But obviously, a series is a whole thing. So it won’t be immediate, it won’t be ‘snap your fingers and it’s here.’ And in general, the series, in my mind, is not determined by its genre label. The way I think of it is definitely a lot more of an interpersonal sort of drama built on top of a supernatural techno-thriller. That’s more the space I feel comfortable in.”
Even if he does make more Backrooms movies, though, Parsons would still be interested in supplementing them with more YouTube videos set in this world.
“YouTube has been a great tool for me so far — a platform I deeply enjoy working with,” he says. “I get the same amount of creative satisfaction working there independently as I do on this film. So I’ll probably still engage with YouTube, to an extent.”
He admits he isn’t entirely sure where A24 would stand on the idea of him continuing to make Backrooms content on his own: “I haven’t gone and actually engaged with that, since the film’s now in the process of releasing,” he says. “But there’s never been any pushback when it’s been spoken about internally. And that’s always been the idea. I think the YouTube side just gets left as is. I don’t know what the exact legal writing on that is. I believe it mostly just comes down to A24 having awareness of [what I make], and probably pre-awareness to view these things. But they’ve been very creatively hands-off, and I think they’re trusting the creative judgment calls I’m making, in terms of how I’m delivering media to the audience. So if something like that feels productive and compelling, I don’t think they have an incentive to try to block it in any way.”
Regardless of where or how he continues the Backrooms story, Parsons says he already knows its entire shape, including exactly where it ends. So fans don’t need to worry about him fumbling through project after project with no clear goal or connection.
“I like to start from the ending [of a project] first, so I know where I’m going,” he says. “I like to make sure I’m not in the camp of projects that are making themselves up as they go along, and don’t have an actual thread to be holding to the whole time. I feel like half the things I’ve grown up with, the final season — they talk about knowing the ending, but it usually feels like they just say that for press, and then it falls apart at the end. I will not fire shots at anything in particular, but it feels like a not uncommon experience. So I’ve cared about making a project that is built from the ground up in such a way that it is going to have continuity and throughlines.”
Backrooms premieres in theaters on May 29.
