"Spider-Man: Brand New Day," released in July, has grossed nearly a billion dollars in the U.S. alone, which, heading into fall, has Matt Belloni and others in Hollywood experiencing an unusual emotion: mild optimism.
"I think we've had a successful year at the box office a), because there are more movies; then b) I think this year there have been movies for different audiences," he said. "We see movies like 'Obsession' and 'Backrooms' bring in the younger audience. We've seen 'The Odyssey' bring in the older audience. We've seen a mass-market hit like 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' bring in everybody."
Belloni is founding partner at Puck News, and the host of "The Town" podcast. He knows just about every player at every studio. "This year they are finally up to a cadence of movies that, even when they don't all work, they contribute to the box office," he said.
Take this summer: With its $4.7 billion in domestic box office, the summer of 2026 was the highest-grossing in history (not adjusted for inflation). Across North America, 322 million tickets were sold, up 22% from last year. What Hollywood cheered most was who was buying those tickets: 18-to-35-year-olds, who made up 37% of the audience, a strong rebound since the pandemic.
And much of that elusive demographic showed up for "Obsession," directed by 25-year-old Curry Barker; and for "Backrooms," directed by a 21-year-old, Kane Parsons. "They were movies that were expected to do okay, but they were not expected to gross hundreds of millions of dollars and become phenomenons," Belloni said.
"Obsession," a horror riff on getting what you think you want, was made for under a million dollars – and has grossed more than half a billion worldwide. In its opening weeks, 75% of its audience was under 35, a success that elated the film's executive producer Jason Blum, who told a Producers Guild of America panel in June, "There's f*****g hope in the movie business, and it's exciting and it's great." According to Blum, "The stars of the internet, they want to make movies."
Director Curry Barker is one of those internet stars, a YouTube content creator who gained a huge following making horror shorts and comedy skits. Some 800 million YouTube views later, learning along the way, Barker stepped onto his set as a first-time feature film director, writer and editor, an experience he called "really overwhelming and nerve-wracking. But then after I'd called 'action' on the first day, done a couple takes and called 'cut,' I very quickly realized that like, wait a second, yes, this is a bigger scale, but this is exactly the same thing I've been doing since I was 12 years old with my brothers.'"
For Belloni, it's a path to the big time that isn't like the olden days: "You would go to Sundance and you would be a breakout, you would do a short film, you would do a commercial, you would do a music video, and then Hollywood would come calling and you would get a first feature. What's happening now is that these young filmmakers are not just honing their craft; they're also honing their audience."
It's an audience that showed up massively for fellow first-time director Kane Parsons. His film "Backrooms" grossed $118 million worldwide in its opening weekend, making him, at age 20, the youngest director ever of a #1 film.
The movie was based on an unlikely viral photo of an empty store, which Parsons used as the inspiration for a video he created and posted to YouTube (now watched nearly 100 million times) featuring someone trapped in a series of maze-like rooms. Soon, the studio A24 came calling.
"'Backrooms' had a world around it," said Belloni. "It had something that particularly high school kids and 20-somethings knew about. If you're a studio, you want a pre-interested audience. 'Pre-branded' is what they say, and that's what 'Backrooms' ended up being for that audience."
Will we see more of this? Belloni said, "We're seeing announcements once a week from studios around town that are at least developing projects based on YouTube videos, or creators that have a following – you know, this guy has a couple million followers, let's see what he can do."
"All YouTube content creators, we start with zero subscribers," said Mark Vins. "And those first few years, those formative moments, your audience encouraging you, that's really the only positive feedback you have."
Vins should know; over the course of a dozen years, his YouTube channel "Brave Wilderness" has gone from zero to more than 20 million subscribers. He just debuted his first feature length documentary, "Reef to Ridge," at the Toronto International Film Festival.
"One of the questions I get asked often is, how do you pick your next story? How do you pick your next adventure?" Vins said. "And my answer is always the same: We have the world's largest focus group on YouTube, and we listen to them."
And thanks to YouTube's technology, creators can study what and how their audiences are watching.
Vins said, "It's not just the comment section; there's, like, deep analytical tools that we have, and we pay attention to all of those metrics, whether it's, like, you know, the retention graph, to when people are tuning in, tuning out, the click-through rate. All of that information creates an alchemy that becomes our instinct as creators."
It's a new kind of film school, which makes perfect sense to Kim Larson, YouTube's Head of Creators.: "What's really amazing about this moment in time is that filmmakers like Mark are getting recognized for the craft that's really always been on YouTube," she said. "I don't think we're doing anything different. I think we're in the middle of a cultural shift that's happening on YouTube."
So, will YouTube become the next place that all hot directors come from? Maybe, says Matt Belloni.
"It could be that if you have five million followers, you're gonna be a moviemaker," he said. "It could be that you're terrible at it, or you had one idea that you've exploited online and you have no other ideas.
"The thing that makes Hollywood great – and also drives people crazy – is you never know where the next hit is coming from," Belloni said. "And right now, the hot place to look is on YouTube. But who knows? It could be somewhere else tomorrow."
Story produced by Reid Orvedahl and Kay Lim. Editor: Jason Schmidt.
