{"id":2451,"date":"2026-06-16T21:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T21:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2026-06-16T21:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T21:04:13","slug":"from-youtube-to-hollywood-digital-creators-are-remaking-the-movie-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2451","title":{"rendered":"From YouTube to Hollywood: Digital creators are remaking the movie business"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>NEW YORK<\/strong> | Some of the most promising young filmmakers in the movie business are arriving in Hollywood already experts at entertaining audiences and going viral.<\/p>\n<p>The twin sensations of \u201cObsession\u201d and \u201cBackrooms\u201d \u2014 both by 20-something YouTubers-turned-filmmakers \u2014 has put a new spotlight on an increasingly well-trod path to the director\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese filmmakers are in a dialogue with their audience from the word \u2018Go\u2019. Their subscribers have direct input in each iteration of these things,\u201d Mike De Luca, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chair, said at a conference last month. \u201cBy the time you get to the movie, they\u2019ve had a billion test screenings.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cObsession\u201d and \u201cBackrooms\u201d aren\u2019t the first of their kind. Issa Rae and Bo Burnham are among those who began on YouTube. But more and more of today\u2019s indie filmmakers began online. Here are some of the digital creators who have already broken through, and some who may soon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kane Parsons<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Known online as \u201cKane Pixels,\u201d the 20-year-old Parsons is the director of the A24 horror hit \u201cBackrooms.\u201d 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. It\u2019s made $250 million worldwide at the box office. A sequel is already in development.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Curry Barker<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cThe Chair\u201d and a found-footage horror film made for $800, \u201cMilk &amp; Serial.\u201d After Tea Shop Productions saw \u201cThe Chair,\u201d the company financed Barker\u2019s $750,000 production of \u201cObsession.\u201d After a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Focus Features acquired it for $15 million. It\u2019s expected to soon pass $300 million worldwide in ticket sales. Barker has already made his next film, \u201cAnything But Ghosts,\u201d for Blumhouse Productions, and A24 has enlisted him for a reboot of \u201cThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Markiplier<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 36-year-old 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 \u201cIron Lung.\u201d He also wrote and edited the sci-fi horror film based on a 2022 video game. Made for less than $5 million and self-distributed, \u201cIron Lung\u201d grossed more than $50 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jordan Firstman<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cI Love LA\u201d and was a consulting producer on the animated series \u201cBig Mouth.\u201d But in May this year, Firstman made his directorial debut with \u201cClub Kid\u201d at the Cannes Film Festival. The film, starring Firstman as a gay nightclub promoter who discovers he has a son, was a breakout hit at the festival. After a bidding war, A24 acquired it for $17 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dylan Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Clark, a north Virginia native, has been posting horror shorts on YouTube for the last eight years. Now, he\u2019s turning the most popular of those, \u201cPortrait of God,\u201d into a feature, with Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi producing. Clark has also been tapped by Lionsgate and Blumhouse to direct a new \u201cThe Blair Witch Project.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sam Evenson<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In April, Neon announced that Evenson will direct a feature adaptation of his viral 2014 12-minute short \u201cMora.\u201d The short, which has been watched by nearly 5 million on Evenson\u2019s YouTube channel, Grimoire Horror, is about a struggling artist\u2019s search for a bloody, malformed woman who appears in AI-generated images. Roy Lee, producer of \u201cWeapons,\u201d is producing. It will mark Evenson\u2019s directorial debut, though he has many visual effects credits, including \u201cDune: Part Two\u201d and \u201cThe Last of Us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2445\">SpaceX buys AI coding startup Cursor for $60 billion in race for an edge over Anthropic and OpenAI<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2447\">Iran says the deal to end the war with the US requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2449\">AP Exclusive: The school choice scholarship boom benefits kids already in private school<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK | 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 \u201cObsession\u201d and \u201cBackrooms\u201d \u2014 both by 20-something YouTubers-turned-filmmakers \u2014 has put a new spotlight on an increasingly well-trod path to the director\u2019s chair. Hollywood executives [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1101,1102,149,150,166,167,1103,1117],"tags":[2889,4018,4019,2403,4020,4021],"class_list":["post-2451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-0-no-apple-publish","category-1gridmagazine","category-a-town-magazine","category-celebrities","category-credits","category-sentinel-screen","category-uncategorized","category-z-other-ts","tag-curry-barker","tag-dylan-clark","tag-jordan-firstman","tag-kane-parsons","tag-markiplier","tag-sam-evenson"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>From YouTube to Hollywood: Digital creators are remaking the movie business - Denver Moving Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/denvermovingchronicle.com\/?p=2451\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From YouTube to Hollywood: Digital creators are remaking the movie business - Denver Moving Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NEW YORK | 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 \u201cObsession\u201d and \u201cBackrooms\u201d \u2014 both by 20-something YouTubers-turned-filmmakers \u2014 has put a new spotlight on an increasingly well-trod path to the director\u2019s chair. 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