Future of Gen Z Filmmaking

Two big horror films, Obsession and Back Rooms just smashed all box office expectations. Back Roms is A twenty four's biggest opening in the studio's history, and obsession made more than three hundred times its small budget. So much of their success has been driven by Gen Z. Gen Z is now the biggest movie going demographic, according to a couple of recent surveys by Fandango and Comscore And not for nothing, both of these movies were directed by Gen Z filmmakers. What makes a movie a Gen Z movie? I'm Stephen Thompson. Today on NPR's pop culture Happy Hour, we are bringing you an episode of It's Been a Minute Brittneany Lewz sat down with Sam Adams, staff writer at Slate, and Rihanna Cruz, entertainment journalist and critics Rienna is also member of Gen Z 's Brid me Ready Hello, hello. I'm Britty Lewuce and you're listening to It's B A Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident Ranna, Sam, welcome to It'sin mininute. So happy to be here. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thank you Okay, I'm excited to talk about this. I want to talk about backrooms and obsession. L these movies have done huge numbers, huge numbers What you think about them? Rihanna, we'll start with you. It's interesting. I've had kind of inverse reactions to both of those movies where I was in the theater for obsession. I was like, this is pretty good. And then over time I've started to like it less And I've had the opposite experience with backrooms where I saw it and I was like, all right, this is okay. And the more I sit and think about it, the more I like it. I like a lot of horror movies. Me too. We kind of live in horror maxing times, which I'm obsessed with But I think of the two, I'm definitely team I know you we don't want to pick sides, but that's the side that I'm coming down on. I gotta say. I'm gotta say I'm inclined to agree with you. I'm inclined to agree with you. Backrooms. I saw initially and I was like, This decent And then over time, I've grown to appreciate it a little bit more. And then I saw obsession yesterday and I was like My husband I were leaving. He was like, Is this moment we're like, old understand what's going on. But what did you think, Sam? You saw both of these movies, Backrooms and obsession. What did you think Well, since we're not picking sides, team obsession. Yeah. Backrooms, I think is an incredible vibe. like I love the environment of it, which is what the director Kan Parsons kind of comes out of the sort of literal backrooms in it. I think the script, which he did not write is kind of a mess. There's like several monologues coming from a middle aged man. Yeah. I'm like, have you met any middle aged wom before? Right. I mean it's like you've got this underer kn and someone decided that the best protagonist for who his movie was like a forty eight year old divorced guy. That's a bit of a category error right there. Where's Curry Parker who made obsession. I think that's like It's an imperfect movie, but I think some parts of it really work It's like there's so many horror movies you see now that just feel like they're kind of grinding their gears in the first ten, twenty minutes until you start getting to the kills and the premises established. And I think this is a movie that like actually cares about the characters and has, especially in Indian Aareti, who plays Nickki I think has a really like stellar effective performance at the center of it, which has been so key to Just just the one viral clip of her going sort of no, no, no, I'm not even gonna try to do her performance. Oh no, no no no no no no. That was so key just in my experience of kind of watching people warm to the movie online that really seemed to get people's attention. You know, onene of the things that's interesting is that according to the Hollywood Reporter, seventy five percent of a posbssessions audience was eighteen to thirty four. through the second weekend, which is mostly Gen Z. W. And over half of Backroom's first weekend audience was under twenty five, according to Indy Wire. Yeah, This makes sense to me. Yeah. I mean, like Gen Z, they're showing up for these films. Why do you think that is? I mean, you say it makes sense to you Rianna. whyy do you think that is? Well, I think both of these movies have been massive cultural moments I think Both of them have been sounded on premises that are easy to convey. You know, I think the marketing for both of those movies has been good, especially on social media, right? And I think lands really well with audiences that want to be in on the discourse a little bit. Like I've seen a lot of people talking about these films On platforms like TikTok and Instagram reels and Twitter It's interesting to me how many people are showing up because they want a take and they want to comment, right? And I think there's also an element that like Horror is very easy to consume. It doesn't really ask much of its audience. You know, you kind of just show up. and in the case of backrooms, specifically like be immersed in the vibe when I growing up it was like it's Friday night, what movie are we gonna see? I don't think that's how younger people are approaching it. It's not the default thing anymore. so they are picking the movies they want to see, not just based on like, do I want to see this thing, but like what is going to be an experience to like see this in the theater? And Harror is the genre where you most feel like you're in a crowd. peopleeople are like screaming and gasping and like reacting along with you and it's just like The the actual experience for Horror is really special Like this feeling of being part of a group is something especially a generation that is coming up to the pandemic is really craving that sort of experience. That's a really, really, really good point The session was directed by Craay Barker is twenty six and Back Roms was directed by Kaine Parsons, who is twenty. Both of them started out as YouTubers. What do you think about the Gen Z YouTuber two director pipeline happening with these films Super Mario Galaxy just crossed the billion dollar mark. So it's not like everything has changed in Hollywood, but it is certainly like feels like a moment for these particular kind of movies, I think Gen Z is responding to something that feels like a little bit more theirs, not just that the filmmakers are you know, in their twenties But also that this is not something that has been like shoved down their throat by a major corporation and it feels like something they've been ordered to see. It feels like something that it's possible for them to discover And I just think that's really like intoxicating and it's a feeling that's been missing from Movie Going for a long time. Over the past few years, there's been a lot of you know the YouTuber to director pipeline. I'm thinking of Chris Stuckman and Selby Oaks. I'm thking of Philipppoos and talkalk to me and bring her back. Such a good movie. Gayflix.ot Shelby Oaks, the other ones But I think there is something to the fact that audiences feel, yeah, a little bit of ownership over these creators, you know, there's a parasocial relationship element. I think, especially when it comes to backrooms because I hate to call it a property, but it is like a thing on YouTube. Audiences like myself watched it. rs was based on a creepy pasta, which is like a meme if a meme was scary Yeah, a G zZ way of engaging with horror material We're gonna take a quick break, but first, you all know I really love hearing from you. and many of you keep leaving the kindest notes for me in the reviews and comments. One listener mentioned that this podcast is the only way to start their day. Forget coffee. Another wrote that if this show is talking about a topic, that that story is worth ay att Listen, I work hard to have my ears to the ground for you. And I am so grateful to all of you for always coming back four times a week. It would also mean so much to me if you can rate and review this show wherever you listen. It helps new listeners discover the show and allows this community we're building keepeep growing Join the IBAM team. Rate and review this show right now. Thank you so much comoming up after the break. I saw something on the internet the other day where someone was saying, if you're in a certain age, like in your mid twenties, like you've just never known a world where people are rewarded for doing good. And I think that feels like something that really runs through in these films. Stick around Even before these films came out, according to a couple recent surveys by Comscore and Fandango, Jen Z is now the biggest movie going audience. I think for a long time, Hollywood was worried that that wouldn't be the case. But I wonder, what is bringing G Jen Z to movie theaters I think it's a lot of things. I think again, social media plays a big part of it. People want to be in on the discourse. That's how obsession got me because I was like, everyone's talking about I'm like I want to talk to, I want to be included. Well, yeah, exactly. And I think Gen Z demographic that uses the platform letterboxed a lot. A, yes, letterboxed. You know Letter boxed gamifies movie watching, it rewards you the more movies you watch. Yeah. I love logging my watches into Letterbox. yeah. Yeah, yeah, it shows off to your friends how cultured and tapped in you are. You know, there's something really satisfying about seeing your movie stats go up. It's a social media platform for movies, and I think that has a lot to do with it. I also think that like The idea of these movie subscription services like AMCA list turns the movie, which was previously, in my eyes, like a solo experience into something easy that friend groups can do. Oh, so you're an A lister, okay? Oh, you know I'm an A lister. It's For a lot of people cost effective. I see a lot of movies with a lot of different people. I have a lot of people on my A list entourage. like it's a social element baked into the service. What is AList entourage? Basically all of your friends who also have AList, you can send each other links and like add each other on the app so they all populate in your right when you're buying a ticket. and it's very, very easy to book tickets for your friends. Oh, that makes sense. Sam, what do you think? How do you think Gen Z's become the largest movie goingo audience? I mean, I wonder if one of the things that's maybe going on in this particular moment is sort of like a long term rant of mine is that people have been complaining for years that moovies are too expensive, right? I think what really happened is that people stopped valuing that experience. one hundred percent agree. So it wasn't that they cost too much, is that they were like fifteen bucks for a movie when I can wait for it or whyy would I pay that? Yeah Everything else is so much more expensive now that I think maybe part of it is people are coming back around to like, there's not a lot of other things you can do except for like go for a walk. That involves like paying fifteen bucks to do something collective for two hours. Like you can't get two beers for that in most cities. No So I think and especially if you have something like you know a subscription service, which also they often like discount your popcorn and your soda and whatever. like I think it actually is just sort of like a good value for money proposition on top of everything else And I think part of what's going on with these movies too, not just obsession and backrooms, but also like the drama a couple months ago, which was another movie that seemed to be a real hit with this Demographic is these are movies that people are like discussing there's something that you can kind of chew on for days and weeks afterwards, which again is like spend fifteen bucks go to a theater for two hours and you have like weeks of Guess entertainment I just saw the drama a week ago Gen Z members of the IBM team have let me know that that was a Gen Z movie. And after I saw it, I was like, Ohh, I totally get the sensibility. I hundred percent agree I think there are certain movies that are of certain generations, regardless of who made them, right? High Fidelity feels very gen X to me Mean girls made by Genx person, but Very millennial for sure. Although I think that everything everywhere all at once is perhaps like more apt example of like what a millennial film really is because of like It just has this sort of like millennial hope core kind of vibe running through it. Hope Core definitely millennial. Yeah, exactly. And like the millennial directors, it just feels like the generational fingerprint is really on there. What do you think makes a Gen Z movie? L what do you think about that Backgrooms and obsession are very doomer vibes That's definitely part of the Gen Z movie aesthetic. I think As a member of GenZie, I think there's two things going on, right? And it's an ander or situation. It's that members of Gen Z have to be featured in the movie. I think that's why the drama in part is a Gen Z movie. I mean, it's just Zendaya and she's on the cusp, right? I think she's technically a millennial, but only just by a few months though Of course, more culturally, she might be Gen Z Neither one of us could claim her. Robert Patinson keeps insisting in interviews that it's he's Gen Z, It' sort of like a running joke. Do you wish you were a G Z? You're not Gen Z, you're a millennial. No, you're a millennial I believe that you believe that you're Gen Z. I am Gen Z What year were you born? Does't matter I think Gen Z movies have to feature members of Gen Z in some capacity and also have a devotion to exploring the digital aesthetic landscape that we find ourselves in I don't think obsession does this. Part of my issue with the movie is that screens are kind of non existent for these characters. But I don't know, I think that's why the drama to me lands because it features Zendea and also it has a very uniquely G Z experience of like being on the computer too much and getting really involved in like scary communities online, not saying that happened to me, but I saw that happen to people that I know. where When she was talking in the movie about you know, being obsessed with school shootings, like I would come across people like that on Tumblr when I was a teenager and be like, whoa, this is really freaky. It's something that could actually happen. And so that's why I think like the two things are members of Gen Z and or digital aesthetic, where Backrooms is made by a Gen Z director, but all the characters are not Gen Z And yet it focuses on like digital abstraction. I didn't even think about that. You're right. like Well, because we live in a very digital age, you know, As Gen Z, like we're the first generation to grow up fully O That part makes sense, but I'm talking about what you said with backrooms where it felt G Z because it's got a kind of digitally abstracted aesthetic.. I mean of course, like canonically, it's taking place in nineteen ninety, so no one in the film can be Gen Z. But to me, it's always kind of fun to see people who were not even born in the nineteen hundreds in general tryed to imagine what it was like back then. Yeah. It's almost like, I don't know, someone's trying to go back through like when people were obsessed with Egyptology in the nineteen twenties and they were like trying to excavate and figure out what ancient Egyptians were doing That's kind of how this movie felt where it's like a person who grew up around probablyably not too many shopping malls and or maybe saw a lot of vacant strip malls and is trying to sort of like make sense of like why that feels so horrifying and what was going on there. It's funny to me as a person who like, I'm old enough to remember people shopping in these places, but like Why would Kaye Parsons? Kaye Parsons was not born when people were shopping in these places. So it's kind of interesting to see through the lens of like a period film, what horror there is to be minded in sort of like thinking about the ruins of the world that was. I mean, one of the sort of recurring explanations in backrooms that Chuel Eaor's character has is it's like if you described a dog to someone who didn't know what a dog was and then had them draw a picture of that thing in the backrooms, which is set in, you know sort of shopping malls and these like public spaces. that are kind of devoid of all meaning. One of the things that I think links certainly the movies that seem to be hitting with Gen Z This year is this total evacuation of like any meaning from the world, L there are rules They don't work anymore. E in obsession, it's like the rule is like take this stick, like break it, wish for what you want. You'll get it And Bear, in theory, like does what the instructions on the package tell him to do And it does not work out for him. And so these are worlds in which there's just kind of like no pathway to success or happiness anywhere. likeike the world is just fundamentally broken. I saw something onn the internet the other day where someone was saying, if you're in a certain age, like in your mid twenties, like you've just never known a world where people are rewarded for doing good And I think that feels like something that really runs through this the sense of the world you're seeing in these films. Yeah, that's what I mean about the like doomorism of it, right? Like I think that's the dominant vibe that Gen Z finds ourselves in It's Interesting to see that conveyed in movies And I don't think that there has been anything to accurately portray that hopelessness so far. So I think that's a really great point, Sam. One of the things about reession is that The film kind of starts off with group of four friends who all work at the same job that none of them are fulfilled by or seem to particularly like They're all kind of lonely in their own individual ways and they don't share with each other emotionally as you think that friends might. They're kind of like suffering in silence, even though they're spending a lot of time together. what hope for happiness that a couple of these characters have It gets snuffed out by the events of the film. Right. I do wonder also how much of this vibe that's coming through is because Also because horror is like one of the few places that like a young filmmaker who doesn't have a movie star on board can like make an impression and get an audience like the fact that Cry Barker was a sort of online sketch comedian, but when he wanted to make features He obviously I knew that a car was the place to break in. Like I wonder If you gave a Gen Z filmmaker ten million dollars like Kane Parsons got for backrooms to make like a romantic comedy or something, maybe it wouldn't seem like quite so hopeless Totally watch a Gen Z Romcom. Like one of the coolest things for me has been seeing through different pieces of art made by members of Gen Z, how they're feeling about their experience of the world, but I'd like to see more perspectives on it. Like even the YouTuber of Film Director pipeline, like it's still very white and male I'll be curious to see if that or how that opens up for Gen Z. I mean, for millennials, we got versions of that. Like Abbott Elementary is due to the success of Quinta Brunson. She started out doing online videos as did Isa Ray, who turned an online video series into basically an HBO show. It was a different kind of era for Hollywood to a certain degree, both in terms of diversity and in terms of trying to mine the internet and video content for potential new stars. I'm hoping to see maybe another cycle of that and some new voices, but Hollywood is obviously paying attention to the success of these movies, right? Hollywood tends to learn the least disruptive lesson they can from things like this. So in this case, it's like getet me the next young white guy with a big YouTube presence. And that's one way to go in this, The lesson I hope they would take from these is just let younger people kind of like represent their experience. I think there's stuffy movies just about characters in their twenties doing anything that looks like real life or resembles the way they see the world and I don't think that it has to come from YouTube and Curry Barker had a YouTube following It's not enormous. It's not like the eighty three million people who watched the backrooms video. It's just enough to give them a leg up and the people are responding to this because it's a good movie and it has characters in their twenties whose lives feel like the lives of people in their twenties and I hope Someone some smart person will take that lesson from it instead , Rianna, thank you so much. This has like been such an enlightening conversation. You'all brought up so many things I hadn't even thought of. So thank you both so much for joining me. Thank you. Happy to be here. That was Sam Adams, staff writer at Slate, and Rihanna Cruz, enttertainment journalist and critic This episode of It's Bit Ininute was produced by Liam McVain. Engineering support came from Tiffany Vera Castro. This episode was edited by Nina Patag. Our supervising producer is Shera Vincent. Our executive producer is Bartin Girdwood. Our VPA programming is Yolanda Sangueni Alright, that's all for this episode of It's Bitter Minute from NPR I'm Brittneanyy Luz. Talk soon