‘Obsession’ And ‘Backrooms’ Prove YouTube’s A Powerful Pipeline For Filmmakers

BusinessMedia‘Obsession’ And ‘Backrooms’ Prove YouTube’s A Powerful Pipeline For FilmmakersByDavid Deal,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Deal writes about entertainment, marketing and technology.Follow AuthorJun 10, 2026, 01:23pm EDTThe YouTube logo displays on a screen with a person holding a phone in Knurow, Poland, on September 20, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)NurPhoto via Getty ImagesHollywood studios mine film schools, scour festivals and run development programs to find successful directors. YouTube found several without trying. This spring, two YouTube creators, Curry Barker and Kane Parsons, released their debut features, Obsessionand Backrooms (respectively), which have collectively grossed over $445 million worldwide and set records at Focus Features and A24. YouTube has become a source of filmmaking talent because it gives creators direct, unfiltered feedback from a massive audience, with nobody intervening in the processYouTube Has Been Building Directors For A DecadeBarker and Parsons are the latest graduates of a pipeline that has been running since the early 2010s. For instance:David F. Sandberg spent years posting no-budget horror shorts to YouTube before his film Lights Out went viral in 2013, attracted the attention of Hollywood producers and became a $149 million theatrical hit.The Philippou brothers, known on YouTube as RackaRacka, built a following through action comedy before making Talk to Me for A24, which earned $92 million on a $4.5 million budget.Mark Fischbach, known to his 38 million subscribers as Markiplier, bypassed the studios entirely, self-financed and self-distributed Iron Lung, and made $51 million on a $3 million budget.The audience discovered them before Hollywood did.Why YouTube SucceedsWhen Producer James Wan arranged his first meeting with Kane Parsons to discuss turning the Backroomsmythology into a feature film, he did not know he was about...