Mark Duplass backs Kane Parsons with 100% control on Backrooms set
mark duplass pushed back on online speculation about Backrooms director Kane Parsons, saying the 20-year-old was “100% in control” on set. The dispute surfaced just days before the A24 horror film is set to hit theaters on Friday, and it lands as Parsons becomes the label’s youngest feature director.
Duplass answers the chatter
After an X user wrote that “we all know Kane Parsons absolutely didn’t direct this movie,” Duplass replied on Tuesday: “Hmmm, with all due respect I don’t remember seeing you on set.” He followed with, “When I was there, Kane was 100% in control,” then added, “More so than many directors 3x his age.”
That response gives the film a sharper business-side frame than a normal cast endorsement. Backrooms is not a tiny indie title with a single pedigree; its producing team includes James Wan, Shawn Levy and Osgood Perkins, which is exactly why social media users started questioning whether Parsons was the primary director at all.
Parsons and the Backrooms build
Parsons began uploading the Backrooms YouTube series as a teen in early 2022, and the feature extends that universe rather than resetting it. At CCXP Mexico, he said the team created 30,000 square feet of actual backrooms and that the movie uses the existing series and online lore as a jumping-off point to examine its characters.
Parsons also said the film is told through the lens of specific characters living “atomized, lonely lives,” and that there is “rarely a moment in the film where there’s more than one or two characters on screen at a given time.” That is a lean setup for a studio horror release, and it keeps the focus on the atmosphere and the performers rather than a crowded ensemble. Backrooms stars Duplass, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Finn Bennett and Lukita Maxwell.
A24’s youngest feature director
The 20-year-old filmmaker now enters Friday’s theatrical launch with two signals working in his favor: a high-profile cast and a public defense from one of the actors on set. For a first feature at A24, the debate around authorship is not just internet noise; it is part of the movie’s launch narrative, especially when the title is arriving with major names attached behind the camera.
Markiplier’s earlier theatrical run with Iron Lung offers a recent comparison point for the creator-to-feature pipeline, after he self-distributed the horror film earlier this year and it surpassed $43 million at the global box office. For Parsons, the immediate test is simpler: the film opens Friday, and Duplass has already put his weight behind the claim that the director was driving the set, not being overridden by it.
