Kane Parsons Is Reportedly Developing ‘Backrooms 2’
The first film grossed almost $400 million USD in the global box office.
Summary
A new report claims Kane Parsons has signed to direct a sequel to A24's breakout horror hit, though no official confirmation has landed
The first film grew out of a YouTube short Parsons made as a teenager before becoming a record-setting theatrical release for the studio
Parsons has said publicly that the story was always designed to extend well beyond a single movie
Kane Pixels may already be lining up his return to the Backrooms, according to a new report. Dread Central reports, citing unnamed sources, that Pixels has signed on to direct Backrooms 2 for A24, and describes an official announcement as imminent. As of now the studio has not confirmed the news, so the report should be treated as unverified until an official statement follows.
Pixels has been attached to more than one project in the wake of the first film, including a separate original he is said to be developing with Backrooms producer Osgood Perkins, which left open the question of whether a sequel or that other film would come first. According to the report, Backrooms 2 is the one moving forward as his next feature. Everything beyond that, including a start date, casting or release window, remains unstated, and none of it is confirmed while the announcement is still pending.
The first film was a genuine phenomenon for A24, an outcome all the more unusual given its origins: Pixels uploaded The Backrooms (Found Footage) to YouTube in 2022 at the age of 16, building on the internet’s existing Backrooms mythology with his own run of analog-horror shorts, and the original nine-minute video alone has drawn somewhere near 80 million views. That short became the seed of a theatrical feature, which prior reporting placed among A24’s biggest earners at roughly $81 million USD.
The larger narrative also has obvious room to grow, which is partly why a sequel reads as a natural next step. The feature pulled Async, the shadowy organization studying the phenomenon, directly into its story, and Pixels has repeatedly signaled that the film only scratched the surface of what he has been constructing. Speaking to Variety ahead of the first film’s release, he framed it as a starting point rather than a self-contained story, saying Backrooms had “always been planned to be more of a series that goes outside the confines of this film.” He added at the time that he was contractually committed to more entries in the franchise. If the new report holds, Backrooms 2 would be where that plan formally begins.
No release date, cast or production timeline has been announced for Backrooms 2, and A24 has not officially confirmed Pixel’s involvement. Until it does, the report stands as an unconfirmed exclusive rather than a finalized deal.
