Horror continues to reign supreme at the summer box office as Backrooms shattered expectations while Obsession continues to grow in its third weekend of release.
Backrooms opened to $81.4 million, the biggest opening in A24’s history. It was only about $200,000 below what The Mandalorian and Grogu opened to last weekend, and obviously cost significantly less than the latest Star Wars movie. The budget for Backrooms was around $10 million, and with a worldwide debut of $117.9 million, it’s already made over 10x its budget. Backrooms is now also the fourth biggest opening ever for a horror film, knocking Five Nights at Freddy’s down to fifth place and only about $3 million behind The Conjuring: Last Rites from last year. Director Kane Parsons is now also the youngest director in history to have a #1 worldwide opening. Audiences gave Backrooms a B- CinemaScore, which, for horror, is actually a solid rating, and we’ll have to see how good its legs are or if it is significantly front-loaded.
One movie that wasn’t front-loaded is Obsession, which took second place with another $27.3 million, increasing again, up 10% from last weekend. This sort of increase in its third weekend is basically unheard of in the summer, with only pop culture juggernauts like E.T. doing anything similar.  Obsession now has $105.7 million domestically and $148.9 million worldwide.
The Mandalorian and Grogu nosedived in its second weekend with a 70% drop-off and $24.4 million, which is the worst drop in the history of Star Wars. The movie has grossed $136.8 million domestically and $246 million worldwide, making it the seventh-highest-grossing film of the year.
Michael and The Breadwinner rounded out the top 5.  Michael is now at $846.4 million worldwide.  The Breadwinner opened to $7.5 million, which puts it slightly ahead of the Bert Kreischer movie The Machine, which opened to $5 million. It’s not clear how much of an effect the “Nate Rate” had on the box office, where star Nate Bargatze negotiated lower ticket prices with various theaters.
Pressure opened in seventh place with $5.8 million domestically. The movie got an A CinemaScore, so it could be a solid counter-programming choice for older filmgoers.  Passenger dropped 69% in its second weekend and slipped to ninth place with $2.7 million, not able to compete with the dual phenomenons of Backrooms and Obsession. It will most likely be out of the top 10 by next weekend.
