Steven Spielberg Just Landed Hollywood’s Next Big YouTube Horror Franchise, and Fans Are Losing It
Analog horror has quietly become one of the most fascinating success stories in modern entertainment, with internet creators turning grainy VHS aesthetics and found footage dread into box office gold. What started as niche YouTube uploads has snowballed into a genre Hollywood can no longer ignore, and the appetite for more of it just hit a new high.
That shift became obvious with the arrival of ‘Backrooms’ and ‘Obsession,’ two YouTube born horror projects that turned into legitimate theatrical juggernauts. Curry Barker’s ‘Obsession’ exploded into a worldwide box office sensation with 374 million dollars, while Kane Parsons’s ‘Backrooms’ became an even bigger surprise, earning more than 331 million dollars worldwide and outperforming major studio releases like ‘Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu’ and ‘Supergirl.’ Those numbers changed how studios view internet horror entirely.
Now the industry’s hunt for the next viral franchise has landed on its biggest target yet. Amazon MGM Studios and Scott Stuber’s United Artists have acquired the film rights to ‘The Mandela Catalogue’ following an extremely competitive eleven studio bidding war, with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment also attached to the project. According to Deadline’s exclusive report, the deal marks one of the biggest YouTube horror acquisitions to date.
The feature will be directed by the creator of the YouTube series, Alex Kister, based on a screenplay he adapted with Tyler Clifton. Steven Spielberg and Holly Bario will produce for Amblin Entertainment alongside Aaron B. Koontz for Paper Street Pictures, with Stuber and Nick Nesbitt producing for United Artists. Kister and Clifton will also serve as producers, with Annie McCreery overseeing the project for United Artists and Maria Fortese overseeing it for Amblin. Keeping the original creator in the director’s chair mirrors how Parsons handled the ‘Backrooms’ adaptation, a move fans tend to see as a sign of authenticity.
For anyone unfamiliar, ‘The Mandela Catalogue’ has amassed well over 100 million views across its official YouTube episodes, making it one of the most widely watched original analog horror series on the platform, and it is often mentioned in the same breath as ‘Local 58.’ The story unfolds through a collection of old VHS tapes, emergency broadcasts, and security footage, chronicling a horrifying invasion by supernatural entities known as Alternates. These shape shifting, nearly immortal beings are led by a distorted figure and aim to eliminate humanity by psychologically breaking people down. The series is set in the fictional Mandela County, Wisconsin, which finds itself overrun by these creatures.
The film adaptation does not yet have a release date, but the sheer scale of the bidding war suggests studios are treating this less like a gamble and more like the next inevitable horror tentpole. With one of YouTube’s biggest horror franchises now in the hands of Spielberg, Stuber, and Amazon MGM Studios, industry watchers are already wondering whether this becomes the next internet born phenomenon to dominate the box office.
Between ‘Backrooms,’ ‘Obsession,’ and now ‘The Mandela Catalogue,’ Hollywood’s YouTube horror gold rush shows no signs of slowing down. With Kister directing his own creation and Spielberg backing the project, do you think ‘The Mandela Catalogue’ can capture the same theatrical magic as its predecessors?
