A24, Chernin Entertainment, James Wan’s Atomic Monster and Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps are all teaming up for a feature film adaptation of the viral video “The Backrooms (Found Footage)”.
The Backrooms is an urban legend and ‘creepypasta’ (much like the Slender Man) which originated in 2019 on a 4chan thread about unsettling images. It has subsequently inspired various works, including the recently popular indie video game on Steam titled “Escape the Backrooms,” and is dubbed an emerging genre of collaborative online horror.
The short film, the first in a series of found-footage horror videos inspired by the urban legend, has clocked in nearly 100 million views for its 17-year-old director and VFX artist Kane Parsons. Sixteen entries in the YouTube series have been made to date.
The 1990s-set original short sees a young filmmaker who falls into another dimension that leaves him wandering through a very yellow, empty and labyrinthine office space which appears to be home to otherworldly monsters who pursue him though the endless corridors, offices, car park and more. Subsequent YouTube shorts expand on the lore
Parsons will direct the sci-fi horror feature from a script by Roberto Patino (“DMZ,” “Westworld”). Wan, Levy, Patino, Michael Clear, Dan Cohen and Dan Levine will produce. A24 reportedly beat out numerous others for the property, though there’s no word on a potential production date.
Source: Deadline
