Some of the most promising young filmmakers in the movie business are arriving in Hollywood already experts at entertaining audiences and going viral. The twin sensations of ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ — both by 20-something YouTubers-turned-filmmakers — has put a new spotlight on an increasingly well-trod path to the director’s chair.
From YouTube to Hollywood
Hollywood executives are scouring platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram to find the next Steven Spielberg. There, young aspiring filmmakers are not only working on their craft but building a relationship with audiences that can transfer to the box office.
These filmmakers are in a dialogue with their audience from the word ‘Go’. Their subscribers have direct input in each iteration of these things, said Mike De Luca, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chair, at a conference last month. By the time you get to the movie, they’ve had a billion test screenings.
‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms’ aren’t the first of their kind. Issa Rae and Bo Burnham are among those who began on YouTube. But more and more of today’s indie filmmakers began online. Some of the digital creators who have already broken through include Kane Parsons, Curry Barker, Markiplier, Jordan Firstman, Dylan Clark, and Sam Evenson.
Digital Creators on the Rise
Kane Parsons, known online as ‘Kane Pixels,’ is the director of the A24 horror hit ‘Backrooms.’ The Petaluma, California, native began publishing videos online at the age of 9. His video series based on the creepypasta Backrooms meme led to his feature film debut, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve.
Curry Barker, the 26-year-old Barker, who grew up in Mobile, Alabama, attended film school in Los Angeles for a year before he began making videos for a YouTube sketch series and eventually the horror short ‘The Chair’ and a found-footage horror film made for $800, ‘Milk & Serial.’ After Tea Shop Productions saw ‘The Chair,’ the company financed Barker’s $750,000 production of ‘Obsession.’
Markiplier, or Mark Fischbach, became popular on YouTube for his playthrough videos of indie video games. With more than 38 million subscribers, he created series and podcasts before making his directorial debut earlier this year with ‘Iron Lung.’ He also wrote and edited the sci-fi horror film based on a 2022 video game.
Jordan Firstman, the 34-year-old Firstman, who grew up in New Jersey, first broke through with a series of short skits on Instagram Live posted during the pandemic. A comedian, writer, and actor, Firstman carved out a more traditional path to filmmaking. He notably co-starred in the 2025 HBO series ‘I Love LA’ and was a consulting producer on the animated series ‘Big Mouth.’ But in May this year, Firstman made his directorial debut with ‘Club Kid’ at the Cannes Film Festival.
Dylan Clark, a north Virginia native, has been posting horror shorts on YouTube for the last eight years. Now, he’s turning the most popular of those, ‘Portrait of God,’ into a feature, with Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi producing. Clark has also been tapped by Lionsgate and Blumhouse to direct a new ‘The Blair Witch Project.’
Sam Evenson, in April, Neon announced that Evenson will direct a feature adaptation of his viral 2014 12-minute short ‘Mora.’ The short, which has been watched by nearly 5 million on Evenson’s YouTube channel, Grimoire Horror, is about a struggling artist’s search for a bloody, malformed woman who appears in AI-generated images.
Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.
