A24 confirmed Kane Parsons for Backrooms 2 — he built the franchise out of a YouTube short he made at 16
A24 has named its Backrooms 2 director, and it’s exactly the pick fans expected.
Well, it took absolutely no one by surprise, but A24 have gone and confirmed it: Kane Parsons is back for Backrooms 2. If you caught the first film’s explosive run at the box office, you’ll understand why the studio wasted no time getting him on board again. The original was based on that unsettling, ever-expanding internet myth, and now it’s a fully fledged franchise with proper horror pedigree.
Backrooms earned $393.2 million in cinemas during 2026.
Backrooms: Where Are We Going Now?
The sequel’s set to pick up where the first film left off. If you’ve somehow avoided spoilers, the story is about a bloke who owns a furniture shop and accidentally discovers a never-ending, yellow maze under his basement—think wallpaper from hell, and a sense that you’ll never quite find the exit. The original was all strange angles and endless tension, and by the end it had barely started to scratch the surface of the lore behind the Backrooms concept. Parsons seems keen to dig much deeper this time around, rumoured to be hunting for a new screenwriter to help him flesh out whatever’s lurking further in.
The Parsons Backstory
I say ‘keen’—the word barely does it justice. If you’ve followed Parsons, you know he’s been obsessed with these bizarre spaces since he was about sixteen. The entire thing began as a YouTube project back in 2022, when teenage Parsons uploaded a found-footage-styled short called ‘The Backrooms (Found Footage)’ under the moniker Kane Pixels. That video hit a nerve online and soon turned into a whole string of unsettling horror mini-episodes, each one more intertwined and mind-bending than the last. The films retained that distinct, liminal vibe—half nostalgia, half night terror—only blown up to a proper cinematic scale. No surprise, then, that A24 snapped up the rights to keep bringing him back for more projects.
The last film wasn’t just critic-proof crowd-pleasing either. It sits at an 87% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, which for a story based on internet creepypasta, is no small feat. And Parsons, for his part, has always made it clear he saw Backrooms as more than just a one-off film. Here’s how he outlined his ambition in an earlier interview, well before sequel talk became official:
‘Without a doubt, Backrooms has always been planned to be more of a series that goes outside the confines of this film. If anything, I would say this is a bit of a foot in the door that would lead to more of a progression towards the true root of the narrative, which has been set up online for years.’
What’s Next?
There’s no official date yet for Backrooms 2 to hit screens, or word on who’s penning the script. All we know is Parsons is officially steering the ship again and A24 aren’t shy about locking him in for yet more laps round the haunted corridors. Judging by the momentum, we won’t be left waiting long for more yellow walls and existential dread.
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