Leviticus, 2026’s latest horror, failed to replicate the breakout success of Obsession and Backrooms in its opening weekend.
Neon’s latest film was released in 1,075 theaters on June 19, grossing $2.6 million in its opening weekend and landing in the No. 8 box office position. To date, Leviticus has grossed $4.3 million worldwide.
For comparison, Obsession grossed $17.1 million in its opening weekend across 2,615 theaters. Backrooms grossed $81.4 million across 3,442 theaters.
All three movies are well-reviewed, modest-budget indie horrors, but only two became hits, raising the question of why Leviticus is struggling to find its footing, where Obsession and Backrooms didn’t.
Unlike Leviticus, Obsession and Backrooms didn’t build their audiences from scratch. Both movies entered theaters with sizable online fanbases already invested in the creators and concepts.
Curry Barker, the director of Obsession, started as a YouTuber before becoming a director. His channel, That’s A Bad Idea, which he shares with Obsession star Cooper Tomlinson, has 1.4 million subscribers on the platform.
Backrooms director Kane Parsons also has a YouTube background. His channel, Kane Pixels, with 3.41 million subscribers, has posted 22 short films from the Backrooms universe over the past four years, with each getting millions of views.
But the concept of the Backrooms didn’t originate with Parsons.
It began in a 2019 4Chan thread, which challenged users to post slightly unsettling images of places. An anonymous comment described the yellow-wallpapered image in the original post as a dimension called the Backrooms, a maze of empty rooms to be trapped in.
The concept quickly evolved beyond the original thread, spawning years of internet user-generated lore and fan communities. Gaming platform Roblox has multiple user-created games themed around the Backrooms. The virality of Parsons’s short films helped to bring the Backrooms into the mainstream and caught the attention of A24 when he was just 17 years old.
Leviticus, on the other hand, is Australian director Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature and has an entirely original premise. Neon acquired the film after its well-received premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, but festival buzz has historically proven unreliable as a predictor of commercial success.
Additionally, in the theaters that Leviticus did play in, it faced tough competition in the form of Toy Story 5, which dominated the weekend box office with a $159.6 million opening – the highest in the franchise.
Obsession and Backrooms did not open during the same weekend as any major blockbusters, boosting their odds of succeeding during their debut weekends. Backrooms debuted at the No. 1 box office position, notably outgrossing Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu in its second week. Obsession debuted at No. 3, not far behind Michael, in its fourth week, and The Devil Wears Prada 2 in its third week.
Unfortunately for Leviticus, this weekend will bring more blockbuster competition with the release of Supergirl, the second movie in the new James Gunn-helmed DC cinematic universe.
But there is still hope. While Obsession did already have Curry Barker’s internet fanbase to draw from in its opening weekend, in subsequent weeks, its audience turnout skyrocketed because of the film’s strong word-of-mouth. Leviticus may be able to capitalize on that, with its 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and 3.8 Letterboxd average.
