From YouTube to Hollywood: Digital creators are remaking the movie business
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10:20 AM on Tuesday, June 16
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Some of the most promising young filmmakers in the movie business are arriving in Hollywood already experts at entertaining audiences and going viral.
The twin sensations of “Obsession” and “Backrooms” — both by 20-something YouTubers-turned-filmmakers — has put a new spotlight on an increasingly well-trod path to the director's chair.
Hollywood executives are scouring platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram to find the next Steven Spielberg. There, young aspiring filmmakers are not only working on their craft but building a relationship with audiences that can transfer to the box office.
“These filmmakers are in a dialogue with their audience from the word ‘Go’. Their subscribers have direct input in each iteration of these things,” Mike De Luca, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chair, said at a conference last month. “By the time you get to the movie, they’ve had a billion test screenings.”
“Obsession” and “Backrooms” aren't the first of their kind. Issa Rae and Bo Burnham are among those who began on YouTube. But more and more of today's indie filmmakers began online. Here are some of the digital creators who have already broken through, and some who may soon.
Known online as “Kane Pixels,” the 20-year-old Parsons is the director of the A24 horror hit “Backrooms.” The Petaluma, California, native began publishing videos online at the age of 9. His video series based on the creepypasta Backrooms meme led to his feature film debut, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. It's made $250 million worldwide at the box office. A sequel is already in development.
The 26-year-old Barker, who grew up in Mobile, Alabama, attended film school in Los Angeles for a year before he began making videos for a YouTube sketch series and eventually the horror short “The Chair” and a found-footage horror film made for $800, “Milk & Serial.” After Tea Shop Productions saw “The Chair,” the company financed Barker's $750,000 production of “Obsession.” After a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Focus Features acquired it for $15 million. It's expected to soon pass $300 million worldwide in ticket sales. Barker has already made his next film, “Anything But Ghosts,” for Blumhouse Productions, and A24 has enlisted him for a reboot of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
The 36-year-old Markiplier, or Mark Fischbach, became popular on YouTube for his playthrough videos of indie video games. With more than 38 million subscribers, he created series and podcasts before making his directorial debut earlier this year with “Iron Lung.” He also wrote and edited the sci-fi horror film based on a 2022 video game. Made for less than $5 million and self-distributed, “Iron Lung” grossed more than $50 million.
The 34-year-old Firstman, who grew up in New Jersey, first broke through with a series of short skits on Instagram Live posted during the pandemic. A comedian, writer and actor, Firstman carved out a more traditional path to filmmaking. He notably co-starred in the 2025 HBO series “I Love LA” and was a consulting producer on the animated series “Big Mouth.” But in May this year, Firstman made his directorial debut with “Club Kid” at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, starring Firstman as a gay nightclub promoter who discovers he has a son, was a breakout hit at the festival. After a bidding war, A24 acquired it for $17 million.
Clark, a north Virginia native, has been posting horror shorts on YouTube for the last eight years. Now, he's turning the most popular of those, “Portrait of God,” into a feature, with Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi producing. Clark has also been tapped by Lionsgate and Blumhouse to direct a new “The Blair Witch Project.”
In April, Neon announced that Evenson will direct a feature adaptation of his viral 2014 12-minute short “Mora.” The short, which has been watched by nearly 5 million on Evenson's YouTube channel, Grimoire Horror, is about a struggling artist's search for a bloody, malformed woman who appears in AI-generated images. Roy Lee, producer of “Weapons,” is producing. It will mark Evenson's directorial debut, though he has many visual effects credits, including “Dune: Part Two” and “The Last of Us.”
