Warner Bros. and HBO have spent recent weeks trying to pull Kane Parsons away from A24, a courtship that now puts one of the biggest names in internet-born horror at the center of a bidding fight. The 21-year-old filmmaker, who lives with his mother in the Bay Area, directed Backrooms, the $10 million movie that turned into A24’s top-grossing release ever with $374 million worldwide.
That kind of return explains why studios are circling. Parsons made his name with Backrooms as a series of YouTube shorts, and the movie’s success has turned him into the kind of creator major companies now want attached to film and TV. Warner Bros. bosses Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy flew to his home in the Bay Area in recent weeks, and Parsons took part in a Zoom on Thursday with HBO boss Casey Bloys and Francesca Orsi, the network’s head of drama and HBO films.
The proposed Warner Bros. deal would cover both film and TV, a broader setup than the usual one-project sale and a sign that the studio wants Parsons across multiple formats. Universal chief Donna Langley has also met with him, adding another heavyweight to the contest for a filmmaker whose next move is being watched closely by executives trying to lock up online-native talent before someone else does.
A24, meanwhile, is not letting go easily. The company is courting Parsons for a Backrooms sequel and another original project, hoping to keep the filmmaker inside a studio relationship that helped turn a low-cost Internet idea into a global hit. Parsons fully owns the Backrooms IP, which means any studio that wants him has to persuade him not just to direct, but to bring the property with him.
That ownership is the key reason the fight matters now. A24 has also learned, through recent experience and several near misses in the market, that filmmakers who break through with one company often get tugged toward larger, better-funded homes after the first hit. It beat Universal and other studios with a seven-figure deal for Talk to Me at Sundance in 2023, then landed Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou’s next film, Bring Her Back, and put a Talk to Me sequel into development. But the same pattern that once favored A24 now cuts the other way when a young creator can carry both an IP and an audience of his own.
For Parsons, the decision is still open. A24 can offer continuity and a sequel. Warner Bros. and HBO are offering scale, flexibility and a film-and-TV path. The next move will show whether the studio that made Backrooms a phenomenon can keep the filmmaker behind it, or whether the bigger machine wins the creator who proved that YouTube horror can still become a theatrical event.
