HBO Max found a creative way to promote Backrooms by dragging some of its most iconic shows into the film’s unsettling liminal spaces. The streamer shared a mashup blending clips from Lanterns, True Detective and The Sopranos with the horror hit’s eerie imagery.
HBO combines its television library with the internet’s popular Backrooms horror concept
HBO Max shared a promotional post on X captioning “Took a wrong turn” with the hashtag #Backrooms, as the A24 horror film currently holds the streamer’s No. 1 spot in the United States. Specifically, the post, which garnered 1 million views, featured a teaser blending clips from HBO shows like Lanterns, True Detective and The Sopranos with Backrooms-style imagery.
The film debuted on HBO Max on September 26 after a 14-week theatrical run that earned $402.5 million worldwide against a $10 million budget.
Notably, director Kane Parsons created the viral Backrooms concept at age 16 and made his feature debut at 20. The film adapts his YouTube web series inspired by the “Backrooms” creepypasta, an internet horror subgenre dating back to 2007. As a result, Parsons became the youngest filmmaker to reach No. 1 at both the domestic and global box offices with the film.
Meanwhile, Backrooms opened to $81.5 million domestically and $118 million worldwide, setting a new A24 record. It then surpassed A24’s previous highest-grossing title, Marty Supreme, after just two weekends in theaters. The film currently stands as the second-highest-grossing horror film of 2026 and the fifth-highest-grossing independent film of all time.
Additionally, critics responded positively, with the film earning an 87% score on Rotten Tomatoes from 312 reviews. Metacritic assigned it a 76 out of 100 based on 47 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B-” on an A+ to F scale.
On HBO Max, Backrooms instantly outperformed titles like Supergirl, which earned $126 million against estimated production and marketing costs of $290 million. Looking ahead, Parsons has confirmed a sequel is in the works with A24, and he has also expressed interest in developing a television series set in the Backrooms universe.
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