Reddit Is Hollywood’s New Script Room, and ‘Backrooms’ Is Why
The internet has spent years producing stories, myths, and entire fictional universes in comment sections and forum threads, and Hollywood has finally decided it is done ignoring the library. Following a string of high-profile adaptations rooted in online culture, agencies and studios are now treating Reddit as something closer to a development pipeline than a place to waste time at work.
The platform has long operated as an unofficial creative workshop, with communities like r/nosleep hosting original horror fiction and r/backrooms giving rise to one of the internet’s most elaborately constructed mythologies. Reddit’s chief marketing officer Jim Squires described the platform to The Hollywood Reporter as “the most powerful focus group that’s ever existed,” noting its value both for discovering ideas and for testing how audiences respond to them. That framing is no longer just a corporate talking point. It is now a strategic reality shaping what gets greenlit.
The clearest proof of concept is ‘Backrooms,’ the A24 horror film that turned a liminal-space internet phenomenon into a full-blown box office event. Directed by then-20-year-old YouTuber Kane Parsons, the film opened to $81 million domestically and $118 million globally, delivering the largest debut in A24 history and the biggest opening weekend ever for an original horror film. Co-financed by A24 and Chernin Entertainment on a budget of under $10 million, the film has since grossed $262.6 million worldwide, making Parsons the youngest filmmaker to reach number one at the domestic box office.
It is that staggering return on investment that has talent agencies paying much closer attention to what is being written in subreddits. According to The Hollywood Reporter, at least one Hollywood agency now has assistants combing through Reddit and its various communities looking for the next hit, with a veteran at the company telling the outlet that they have already identified a collection of subreddits and short stories they believe could make compelling films. The appeal is obvious: original internet IP with built-in fanbases, low acquisition costs, and a proven track record of translating to paying audiences.
One story already in development is being produced by and starring Sydney Sweeney, a thriller titled ‘I Pretended to Be a Missing Girl’ that originated on the r/nosleep subreddit. Warner Bros. acquired the rights in a competitive situation, with Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth attached to adapt the story, which was originally written by Massachusetts English teacher Joe Cote. If that film performs anything like ‘Backrooms,’ the floodgates will likely open completely.
A moderator of the r/movies subreddit, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter under the username SanderSo47, summarized the industry shift plainly, noting that studios “see what’s popular, and they want some of that,” and that what Parsons built with his short films proved original ideas can come from anywhere. Reddit’s entertainment-related posts have received hundreds of billions of views over the past year alone, giving studios a real-time window into what fandoms are building and what concepts are generating genuine organic excitement.
What makes this moment feel different from past waves of internet-to-screen adaptations is the pipeline maturing in real time. Jason Blum, who produced ‘Backrooms’ through Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, called YouTube a “new place to look for the next generation of groundbreaking talent,” and Reddit is increasingly being viewed through the same lens, not just as a source of story ideas, but as a place to find the storytellers themselves. The question now is whether the next voice hiding somewhere in a horror forum thread will be given the same runway that Kane Parsons was, and whether audiences will show up just as enthusiastically. If you have a favorite Reddit story or NoSleep post that deserves a film adaptation, drop it in the comments because Hollywood might genuinely be reading.
