YouTube has the rights to the Oscars starting in 2029, but it may only be a matter of time until a YouTuber takes the stage collecting an award for a theatrical film.
One of technology’s latest forays into the movie business comes in the form of YouTube creators who are seeing undeniable success at the traditional box office, just as some bigger-budget projects — say, “Star Wars” — falter.
Managers and agents are now seeking out YouTube film talent, while some producers say YouTubers are learning skills on shoestring budgets that translate into feature films, primarily in the comedy and horror genres. Other dyed-in-the-wool filmmakers aren’t convinced.
youtube filmmaker curry thiefThe first theatrical feature “Obsession” was booming in theaters last weekend at the same time “The Mandalorian and Grogu” stuttered. Barker, 26, a film school dropout, had made his first $800 film in 2024, which debuted on YouTube. But over Memorial Day weekend, the latest “Star Wars” movie was lackluster, while Barker’s first theatrical release, “Obsession,” jumped 39% in its second weekend of release and grossed $60.7 million domestically (plus a reported $21.2 million internationally as it approaches $100 million or more).
The film was made with a budget of between $750,000 and $1 million.
But is YouTube’s new trend artistically anything more than the next incarnation of the “Saw,” “Paranormal Activity,” or “The Blair Witch Project” franchises? “Obsession” has a recent rating of 95% from critics on RottenTomatoes and 94% from fans, while Barker just landed his own profile in the New Yorker. He is represented by UTA and Underground Films & Management, but also recently signed with Lede Company for public relations, which handles top-tier clients such as Rihanna, Will Smith, Reese Witherspoon and Charlize Theron. (Believe it or not, he has three publicists for the Curry team and none of them bothered to respond to us).
A senior manager who has guided the careers of countless filmmakers said: “We are following YouTube’s lead. [creators] as a management company, and the agencies too. “We are very focused on doing business with these people much sooner.”
Next weekend marks the debut of another film from a YouTuber who has an even bigger following than Barker’s. A24’s sci-fi horror film “Backrooms” Kane Parsons20, (known to subscribers as Kane Pixels) is based on the filmmaker’s viral creepypasta horror shorts. (From the Oxford English Dictionary for the uninitiated, “creepypasta” is “Fiction or other media containing elements of horror or the paranormal, usually published online in the form of short stories, often purporting to be true.”)
Preliminary tracking, according to Boxoffice Pro, shows that “Backrooms” looks like the biggest box office surprise of the year with an opening of around $50 million. So far, the publication specialized in the film business predicts that the avant-garde film could generate between 45 and 55 million dollars, a figure that could change in the coming days. If those numbers hold, the initial count would break A24’s opening weekend record it currently holds Alex Garland‘Civil War’ with 25.7 million dollars.
Not everyone is convinced. One venerable film critic dismissed the new school of talent as “yo-yos” when asked for his opinion. But another critic, Elvis Mitchell —a former New York Times contributor who’s now on YouTube with a talk show—tells P6H, “I think they’re a new kind of personal cinema… it’s a way to bring new audiences into theaters and get them excited about going there and about the possibilities of the medium.” He compared the new generation of horror films to the scene that once surrounded “Paranormal Activity” and “Blair Witch.”
Barker, an Alabama native, moved to Los Angeles to attend film school, where he met his creative collaborator (and “Obsession” actor). Cooper Tomlinson. Before long, the duo retired and focused on their own YouTube projects under the moniker “that’s a bad idea.” Tomlinson described his work on the platform as “our film school outside of film school.”
In 2024, with just $800 and four months to film, Barker wrote and directed the 62-minute “Milk & Serial,” which went viral and earned him enough notoriety to sign with UTA. “Obsession” earned the highest sales price for a genre film in the history of the Toronto International Film Festival, eventually going to Universal’s Focus Features and Universal Pictures International for more than $15 million.
Even before the box office success of “Obsession” (the cheapest film since 2009’s “Paranormal Activity”), Focus had already acquired distribution for Barker’s next film, “Anything But Ghosts,” currently in post-production.
A source told P6H that Focus was especially eager to reteam with Barker since he can work efficiently with little time and money. “He’s able to make so many cuts to a scene so quickly because that’s because YouTube grew up on micro-budgets,” a film source said.
After “Anything But Ghosts,” Barker signed on to team up with A24 for the tenth film in the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” series.
Barker and Parsons’ success comes on the back of several notable YouTubers who have set their sights on bigger screens. Danny and Michael PhilippouKnown online as RackaRacka, they have become in-demand filmmakers following the success of their first two horror films, “Talk to Me” and “Bring Her Back.”
Likewise, creator Markiplier“Iron Lung” grossed more than $50 million at the box office this year, while michael shanks He brought his talent to the big screen with 2025 Alison Brie and David Franco-led “Together,” which grossed $34.5 million.
While the cost of attending sought-after film schools like USC and NYU continues to rise, studios are increasingly seeking out self-taught talent — not despite their YouTube education, but because of it.
Said one veteran film professional: “In a more analog era, you used to have to beg, borrow and steal to make a movie. You had to have a place to premiere it, whether it was Sundance or somewhere else. Now you can create content and build your own community, you can raise money and make your movie, and then you can take it to a festival with support already in place. For ‘Iron Lung,’ he just went to AMC and made a deal. That’s the beauty of the future where everyone has been. disintermediated.”
Then again, “There’s a long history of brilliant 750,000 genre movies,” said one source. “And for every one of them, there are 250 that are just horrible.”
