Kane Parsons Is Officially Returning To Direct ‘Backrooms 2’, Here’s Everything We Know So Far

Horror surprises don’t come much bigger than what A24 pulled off with ‘Backrooms’ earlier this year. Adapted from a viral YouTube series about an endless, unsettling network of empty office hallways, the film turned into one of the studio’s most unlikely box office phenomena in its history.

That success story starts with Kane Parsons, who was just 16 when he uploaded the original ‘Backrooms’ web series in 2022, expanding on an existing internet creepypasta with his own interconnected analog horror shorts. That single nine-minute video eventually racked up roughly 80 million views, catching Hollywood’s attention and leading A24 to hand Parsons the reins to a feature adaptation as his directorial debut.

Now, according to a Dread Central exclusive, Parsons has officially signed on to direct ‘Backrooms 2’ for A24, with an official announcement described as imminent. The sequel will reportedly be his next project, meaning he’s not detouring into anything else before returning to the world that made him famous.

That decision tracks given just how enormous the original film’s numbers turned out to be. ‘Backrooms’ brought in $394.1 million worldwide against a reported production budget under $10 million, making it the highest-grossing movie in A24’s history and securing the biggest domestic debut ever for an original horror film.

Interestingly, Parsons had a separate original project in development with mentor Oz Perkins, the director behind ‘Longlegs’ who also produced ‘Backrooms.’ That project has reportedly been put on the back burner for now while Parsons focuses on capitalizing on the sequel’s momentum.

This isn’t the first time Parsons has addressed where the franchise might go next, either. Speaking about the future of ‘Backrooms’ following the film’s success, he’s made clear the story was never meant to be contained to a single movie, describing it as always intended to expand into a broader series that pushes beyond the boundaries of the original feature.

The first film left plenty of story threads dangling for a sequel to pick up. It expanded the mythology beyond the endless yellow hallways fans knew from the web series, bringing Async, the mysterious organization studying the phenomenon, directly into the feature’s plot in a way that opened up multiple paths forward.

Fans and outlets alike have speculated that a sequel could continue following Mary, the film’s central character played by Renate Reinsve, as she navigates her fate with Async, or it could shift focus entirely to a new character discovering a separate doorway into the Backrooms somewhere else in the world. There’s also a real possibility those two threads could eventually intersect, given how much world-building Parsons has already established across both the web series and the feature film.

No casting or plot details have been confirmed for ‘Backrooms 2’ as of now, and A24 has yet to make anything official. Still, with Parsons already established as the driving creative force behind the entire IP, having created it, written it, directed it, and even co-scored the original film, there’s little reason to expect anyone else stepping in to help shape where the story goes next.

Given how quickly Parsons has gone from teenage YouTube creator to the director behind A24’s biggest hit ever, his return for a sequel feels less like a foregone studio decision and more like the natural next chapter in a story he’s been building since he was still in high school. For a franchise built almost entirely on mystery and mythology, it’s fitting that so much about the sequel itself remains shrouded in secrecy for now.

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