Is This The Era Of The YouTube Filmmaker? | Reel Reflections #3
The new era of filmmakers may have just arrived... And they came from the internet.
I like to call myself a bit of a data nerd. In school, I was always good at math. I spent countless hours in my youth collecting baseball cards and reading the backs of players’ careers, looking at averages, hits, walks, ERA and so on, coming up with stories for a player’s career based on the numbers. It was fascinating to me.
When it comes to the movies, I watch box office performance quite a bit, trying to make sense of why this movie did well or that movie underperformed and why studios are funding these movies instead of those. So, dates and times and trends and diving into the why behind the movies we get interests me. We have seen a few distinct eras come and go in the past 75 years of filmmaking. Trends in filmmaking that align with what’s happening in society and culture. The death of the studio system in the 1970s created a generation of innovative young filmmakers getting money to make the movies they wanted to make with little restraint, giving audiences some of the most innovative stories representing an increasing disillusionment in the establishment. 20 years later, the independent cinema wave of the 90s came on like a typhoon as a response to the major blockbuster era of the 1980s, toppling what we thought the movie-making culture was settling into. 30 years later, in 2026, I think we’re about to enter a major new one.
This year, I will turn 28 years old. I mention this because my relationship with the movies has changed so much over that time, and from the beginning it looks a lot different than those even just 10 years my senior. Talking to my dad, who’s now in his mid-60s, about what the movies were like when he was my age, it’s like talking to someone from another planet. Part of that comes from my connection to technology. I grew up in the YouTube era—my formative years as a teenager were spent watching video game playthroughs by some of my favorite creators. It was like stepping into a whole new world, one where I could feel entertained by creators playing through games I couldn’t afford as a 13-year-old or making short films that felt like it did when I would hang out with my friends playing pretend in the backyard. And the best part of all of it was that it was free and accessible. I could watch it on my phone or my computer at any time. I didn’t have to go to the movies to see any of it. I could come home after school, fire up YouTube, and hit play on whatever was new that day. It was unlike anything else I could describe.
YouTube has become a bastion for people without the connections or the funding to make movies and share them with the world quicker, cheaper, and easier than it ever has been. It was only a matter of time until Hollywood caught on to it.
In 10 years’ time, we may very well look back at May 2026 as the true ringing of the bell ushering in a new era of filmmakers to Hollywood. This era could very well be defined by the YouTube filmmakers, artists, and creatives who get their start creating content on the internet before turning their sights to feature-length Hollywood filmmaking. The idea that something like this could even be possible first started swirling in 2011, when director Dan Trachtenberg released a viral short film based on the video game Portal called Portal: No Escape. 5 years later, Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane was released. This idea came to greater prominence when Jordan Peele made the jump from his sketch comedy show Key and Peele that he created with Keegan Michael-Key to becoming one of the quintessential modern horror filmmakers by releasing the acclaimed Get Out in 2017. His felt like the groundwork for non-traditional paths to filmmaking, and he’s gone on to make and produce highly acclaimed horror works to this day.
Cut to nearly 10 years later, and this wave has taken full form. The horror scene has become the catalyst for people like Zach Cregger, Chris Stuckmann, The Philippou Brothers, and more to create feature-length films. Cregger began his career similarly to Peele, creating the sketch comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know before making the leap to horror with Barbarian and last year’s surprise hit, Weapons. Now, Cregger has set his sights on the Resident Evil franchise, adapting the video game series into a brand-new feature starring Austin Abrams, and is also creating The Flood, a Sci-Fi thriller for Warner Bros. Stuckmann started his career as a YouTube film critic before turning to filmmaking with his debut horror flick Shelby Oaks. The Philippous created the YouTube channel RackaRacka back in 2013 and have now released two feature-length horror films, Talk to Me and Bring Her Back. Earlier this year, world-famous youtuber Markiplier miraculously self-funded an adaptation of the video game Iron Lung, then distributed the film by himself across the nation. That movie made over $50 million at the box office and was a huge hit.
Now, in May, we’re seeing two more filmmakers make their debuts. Curry Barker’s Obsession has taken the world by storm, tracking to make over $100 million in its theatrical run. Made for a measly $750,000, Obsession, in its second weekend, actually INCREASED its box office haul 39% more than it did in its first weekend. It’s rare for a film to do better on week 2 than week 1, and to be over 30% is almost unprecedented. There are reports that it could overtake Disney’s The Mandalorian and Grogu in the daily box office returns. That’s a movie with a major studio behind it in one of the most influential and biggest franchises of all time with a production budget 220 times the budget of Obsession. That’s a huge deal.
Barker started his career making videos with the sketch comedy YouTube duo “that’s a bad idea” with Cooper Tomlinson. In 2024, the duo released the film Milk & Serial to their YouTube channel to wide acclaim after being unable to find a buyer for it. Obsession, meanwhile, has launched Barker into the upper echelon of rising filmmakers. Before the movie even came out, A24 signed him on to helm their reboot of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The fact that a studio as prominent as A24 is gambling on a relative unknown to be the man behind one of the most iconic horror franchises of all time is a testament to his skills. Beyond that, rumors have been swirling that he has an open 7-figure offer for his next film, Anything but Ghosts, which he hasn’t even pitched yet. His seemingly sudden rise from out of nowhere has raised quickly debunked rumors on social media that he didn’t even direct Obsession, which I think really shows his abilities and prowess behind the camera.
In addition to Barker, May also sees the release of Kane Parsons’s A24 produced Backrooms. A24 has put their money behind young filmmakers before, and Parsons, now 21, is among the youngest and most exciting. Parsons came to prominence by releasing a series of original shorts of the liminal space backrooms concept to his YouTube channel “Kane Pixels” in 2022 when he was only 16. A24 quickly swooped in and began funding a feature-length adaptation of the short starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve with a budget hovering $10 million. That kind of money is almost unheard of for an unproven filmmaker. Similarly to Barker, Parsons has faced rumors that his Backrooms was shadow directed by other directors, a claim that I similarly find silly. As some have pointed out on social media, many prominent filmmakers began making movies at young ages. Spielberg was only 26 on Jaws, Sam Raimi was 21 when he made The Evil Dead, and John Singleton was 23 when he made Boyz n the Hood. This sort of thing happens more than you may think. That a filmmaker can come from YouTube in place of a more “traditional” route is a sign of changing times, where filmmaking equipment is more accessible than ever before.
And while Backrooms hasn’t officially released yet (it comes out this week), the tracking numbers are looking better than anyone expected. The film is now closing in on a $60+ million opening, which would be one of the biggest for a horror movie ever. That Parsons has essentially homegrown this audience through his work on YouTube is impressive. That Parsons is essentially obsessive about his vision, working tirelessly on creating sets with Blender and conceptualizing the exact details of his film, is a testament to his skill beyond his years.
Personally, I love this investment in filmmakers from non-standard backgrounds. There are so many stories to tell and so many people to tell them. Hollywood has always been and continues to be an ever-increasing nepotism-based industry, so getting new voices with true skill behind the camera and on the page is a welcomed new direction for the industry. It’s always confused me why Hollywood let mid-to-low-budget filmmaking die over the past 20 years. When it’s done right, and you invest in the storytellers that really have something interesting to say, it can become among the most profitable investments a studio can make. Let’s keep looking for those people with a passion for storytelling, wherever they may be, and champion their stories. It’s easier than ever now to find them.
Physical Media Highlight
This week, I’m highlighting a wonderful new release that I was recently able to acquire. Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven has become a highly sought-after grail in the physical media world. For the longest time, the more popular director’s cut was not available on 4k, that is, until May of 2025, when Disney/Buena Vista released a gorgeous 4k steelbook of the film. This was so popular that it sold out almost immediately, and resale of this edition began hitting the secondhand market at triple the price.
Back in March, as I was browsing the subreddits, I happened across a thread that said the steelbook was back in stock on Amazon. Of course, I immediately went to check it out and found it available. So, at that point, of course, I had to order it. Well, almost 2 months later, it finally arrived, and it is glorious. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but I cannot wait to pop it in.
The Film Box Podcast
This week on The Film Box Podcast, we finished out Medieval May by checking out John Boorman’s epic King Arthur fantasy tale from 1981, Excalibur. This movie is absolutely buck wild, and it was a really fun conversation that highlighted the incredible highs and lows of this film. Give it a listen now!
And that’s it for this week’s edition of Reel Reflections! Come back next Friday for more, and as always, watch something great!