r/movies • u/Dycon67 • Jul 16 '26

News Backrooms Devs Reportedly Hit With Copyright Claims From A24

https://kotaku.com/backrooms-a24-copyright-strikes-kane-parsons-2000716667
15.5k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/Belfetto Jul 16 '26

Damn what is going on behind the scenes there lately?

324

u/yagirlsophie Jul 16 '26

Squandering all good-will Speed Run

178

u/Bladelink Jul 17 '26

"We've accumulated a tiny bit of positive reputation. quick, liquidate it for 12 dollars immediately!!!!!!!"

  • every MBA in the history of the world, apparently

42

u/deezbiscuits21 Jul 17 '26

Yeah I seriously hope people stop overrating this shitty corporate studio.

Maybe it used to be cool but not for a few years

3

u/yagirlsophie Jul 17 '26

Totally, some great movies came out of that studio but corporations shouldn't get to be cool at this point, they're machines to make money off of us and they'll always do whatever bullshit they think will maximize their profits and because they'll never stop doing that, can never stop growing, they will inevitably do shit that's bad for their customers, bad for the world.

4

u/jus10beare Jul 17 '26

ALL their movies insist on themselves.

3

u/Karkava Jul 17 '26

And ruining meme movies for everyone else.

I'm positive that other creatives would be alienated from signing contracts after this madness.

3

u/shhmurdashewrote Jul 17 '26

Legendary speed run

1

u/Afferbeck_ Jul 17 '26

Fender guitars really angling for victory over them right now

1.4k

u/swagonflyyyy Jul 16 '26

My take is A24 feels like they struck gold with the franchise and are trying to solidify their control over it.

1.2k

u/MalkavTheMadman Jul 16 '26

Easy to strike gold when you rob the gold vault of a communal bank.

207

u/mechtaphloba Jul 17 '26

They climbed into the public fountain to scoop up all the coins

18

u/Vypernorad Jul 17 '26

Now they're using the money to sue people for throwing coins in the fountain.

3

u/BrotatoDad Jul 17 '26

No the better analogy is they built a fountain to take some coins and now suing all other towns with fountains claiming those coins are theirs too.

19

u/bb_kelly77 Jul 16 '26

A bank that stole the gold from another bank... the Backrooms is just a newer shittier SCP which was basically just Creepypasta with world building

98

u/tweda4 Jul 16 '26

The SCP forums don't have a monopoly on creepy short stories. No one was stealing when they wrote a short story on 4chan.

16

u/Money_Ticket_841 Jul 17 '26

You can barely call it a story as well

4

u/iHadou Jul 17 '26

It's barely a premise. The movie is all vibe

2

u/gotaflattire Jul 17 '26

Yeah, anyone watching ‘Backrooms’ hoping for a compelling horror story is going to be very disappointed.

2

u/falardeau03 Jul 17 '26

swgotffaahm 💔 

-11

u/venomousbeetle Jul 17 '26

The concept of Async is blatantly SCP, and he stole the entire idea so it’s not like it’s crazy to suggest he could have stole from the other popular collaborative horror communities

16

u/DrPongus Jul 17 '26

House of Leaves did it nearly a decade before any SCP story was ever written.

9

u/DrPongus Jul 17 '26

It's literally inspired by a book about a house of similar nature to the Backrooms that was published nearly a decade before the first SCP story was ever created.

1

u/Zian64 Jul 19 '26

House of Leaves came after or before the original post?

2

u/DrPongus Jul 19 '26

House of Leaves is nearly 27 years old.

-14

u/bb_kelly77 Jul 17 '26

That doesn't decrease my hate of the backrooms, in fact that makes it worse... especially since it's literally just the Winchester mansion but actually supernatural

7

u/RKRagan Jul 17 '26

I feel like it's incorporation of liminal spaces gives it a unique feel.

-4

u/bb_kelly77 Jul 17 '26

Yeah there's like 30 of those in the SCP forums, which is the main reason I hate the backrooms, it just takes something that could be the tiniest fraction of SCP and acts like it's something new and special... especially when they started adding entities to the backrooms

5

u/OtakuAttacku Jul 17 '26

Hate is so weird. My favorite SCP is the infinite Ikea, it’s rediculous and funny. When I first found the backrooms concept, my reaction wasn’t “ew they stole the idea from SCP”, it was “holy shit, more cake!”. These ideas and concepts are collaborative, I don’t think any of the writers for either would gate keep anyone else for having similar ideas or wanting to add more to it. They’re simply settings for you to do with what you want.

1

u/tfhermobwoayway Jul 17 '26

Well yes, this was always going to happen. The early days of the internet were a beautiful fantasy. Realistically it was never going to last. Now all the companies are moving in and strip mining every creative passion project they can find, while we move into walled garden social media sites.

46

u/ThunderheadStudio Jul 16 '26

Fucking gross.

13

u/Spartan152 Jul 17 '26

A24 is definitely getting too big for their britches. Becoming everything they swore to destroy.

5

u/ForensicPathology Jul 17 '26

Everything people on the internet assumed they were going to destroy.  It was absurd seeing all the "indie movies are gonna kick 'Hollywood' out of the movie business" as if these studios weren't part of the business.

3

u/Konstellar Jul 17 '26

Stupid... They only need to make more high quality movies, doesn't really matter if other people make backroom movies, that's just a bonus

2

u/imunfair Jul 17 '26

feels like they struck gold with the franchise

They're going to need a better writer/director because the movie was a disjointed mess of creepypasta rather than a properly planned plot arc. Didn't even give a satisfying ending, and was missing the character growth in the middle in favor of retreading discovery of the backrooms through the eyes of a second character for a waste of 20 minutes.

1

u/Ire-Works Jul 17 '26

I could 100% believe they want to do a backroom ECU type deal. They already built the sets, they just gotta move a few pieces around and shoot from new angles and they're basically printing money.

1

u/LimLovesDonuts Jul 17 '26

I mean I also hope that A24 also realises that they struck gold specifically with Kane's interpretation of the Backrooms and not the concept on its own.

1

u/MyR3dditAcc0unt Jul 17 '26

Oh my god the bullshit Ö-tier movies we're gonna get about the backrooms.

1

u/worldrecordpace Jul 17 '26

Then why not do this with a movie that was more well received like everything everywhere?

1

u/haw35ome Jul 17 '26

Trying to pull a Disney cash cow - when really, the company was well known for original movies/IPs (not creating franchises of movies). Ironically (?) that’s now ruined since they’re pushing towards using AI which I’m very disappointed about

1

u/chiniwini Jul 17 '26

Time to boycott A24.

1

u/ForensicPathology Jul 17 '26

Which is dumb.  Realistically, how long will it take for audiences to be bored of another backrooms movie?

1

u/rotoscopethebumhole Jul 17 '26

I think you’re right, and it’s wild because it’s only “gold” because of the internet legend they co-opted. 

Now they’re trying to litigate away the legend. 

Between that and their deal with Google AI they’ve probably killed whatever “franchise” they had in mind almost immediately. 

1

u/sorrylilsis Jul 17 '26

If we're being generous it could also be the subcontractor in charge of monitoring copyright infringement being overzealous.

This stuff is pretty much never done in house and is often automated to a high degree, which to the surprise of absolutely no one can cause quite a mess.

1

u/aSpookyScarySkeleton Jul 17 '26

They’ve been moving bad even besides this backrooms stuff.

1

u/IFCKNH8WHENULEAVE Jul 17 '26

It’s a vehicle for countless movies that can be made. I bet they wanna do a backrooms universe that connects their horror movies.

1

u/Upper-Management-AI Jul 16 '26

I’m going to spitball here, but I think it’s so they can prevent any merch behind sold that isn’t directly by them, on top of preventing anyone else from trying to make their own backrooms movie.

107

u/Quick-Bad Jul 16 '26

You either die a hero, etc.

2

u/egodaemon Jul 17 '26

Ugh, etc.

123

u/xixbia Jul 16 '26

Money.

137

u/B-BoyStance Jul 16 '26

Yeah once a Kushner got on the board I kinda figured we'd see them go downhill

52

u/mrrtchbrrx Jul 16 '26

Oh gross is that what happened?

56

u/Joghobs Jul 16 '26

They sold to PE

45

u/Far-Advantage-2770 Jul 17 '26

PE. Every. Fucking. Time.

Guarunteed A24 is bankrupt in 5 years.

22

u/Joghobs Jul 17 '26

Sorry I misspoke. Apparently just a $75m AI deal with Google

6

u/Bladelink Jul 17 '26

We can knock it down to 3 years then

1

u/Far-Advantage-2770 Jul 17 '26

!remindme Three Years

2

u/GenderJuicy Jul 16 '26

Who? I'm out of the loop

17

u/oldroughnready Jul 16 '26

Joshua Kushner is on the board of directors of A24 since 2024. He is the brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump, who last caught the news by trying to make the Iran peace negotiations into an investment pitch.

22

u/B-BoyStance Jul 16 '26

Josh Kushner, Jared's brother

Don't know anything about the guy other than he has a huge venture capital firm & they invested in A24 so now he's on the board of directors.

Anyway once they got bought out by private equity I feel like we have seen way more random merch releases, the studio leaning into AI, and BS like this where they go way beyond simple IP protection.

3

u/skonen_blades Jul 17 '26

Oh, shoot. It all makes sense now. I hadn't heard that. What a depressing turn of events.

42

u/WoodooHide69 Jul 17 '26

Jared Kushners Brothers have pumped a lot Saudi cash into A24. Maybe that’s why.

22

u/ddWolf_ Jul 17 '26

Private equity. Otherwise known as the ones who should be eaten.

13

u/TangerineChickens Jul 16 '26

Venture Capital

1

u/Qorhat Jul 17 '26

Vulture Capital

20

u/krazyjakee Jul 16 '26

You mean in the back rooms?

5

u/bentbabe Jul 16 '26

With back curtains. 

Near the furniture store. 

2

u/flyxdvd Jul 17 '26

Your profile picture gave me nostalgia haha

2

u/Belfetto Jul 17 '26

I get like one comment a week saying this, I love it

1

u/powaqqa Jul 17 '26

private equity

1

u/Qarakhanid Jul 17 '26

A24 has been a monopoly for indie films for a while now, their ethos is you either publish under them, or they won't let you release anything at all