NEW YORK (AP) — 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 “Obsession” and “Backrooms” — both by 20-something YouTubers-turned-filmmakers — has put a new spotlight on an increasingly well-trod path to the director's chair.
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.
“These filmmakers are in a dialogue with their audience from the word ‘Go’. Their subscribers have direct input in each iteration of these things,” Mike De Luca, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group co-chair, said at a conference last month. “By the time you get to the movie, they’ve had a billion test screenings.”
“Obsession” and “Backrooms” aren't the first of their kind. Issa Rae and Bo Burnham are among those who began on YouTube. But more and more of today's indie filmmakers began online. Here are some of the digital creators who have already broken through, and some who may soon.
Known online as “Kane Pixels,” the 20-year-old Parsons is the director of the A24 horror hit “Backrooms.” 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's made $250 million worldwide at the box office. A sequel is already in development.
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 “The Chair” and a found-footage horror film made for $800, “Milk & Serial.” After Tea Shop Productions saw “The Chair,” the company financed Barker's $750,000 production of “Obsession.” After a premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Focus Features acquired it for $15 million. It's expected to soon pass $300 million worldwide in ticket sales. Barker has already made his next film, “Anything But Ghosts,” for Blumhouse Productions, and A24 has enlisted him for a reboot of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
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 “Iron Lung.” 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, “Iron Lung” grossed more than $50 million.
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 “I Love LA” and was a consulting producer on the animated series “Big Mouth.” But in May this year, Firstman made his directorial debut with “Club Kid” 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.
Clark, a north Virginia native, has been posting horror shorts on YouTube for the last eight years. Now, he's turning the most popular of those, “Portrait of God,” into a feature, with Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi producing. Clark has also been tapped by Lionsgate and Blumhouse to direct a new “The Blair Witch Project.”
In April, Neon announced that Evenson will direct a feature adaptation of his viral 2014 12-minute short “Mora.” The short, which has been watched by nearly 5 million on Evenson's YouTube channel, Grimoire Horror, is about a struggling artist's search for a bloody, malformed woman who appears in AI-generated images. Roy Lee, producer of “Weapons,” is producing. It will mark Evenson's directorial debut, though he has many visual effects credits, including “Dune: Part Two” and “The Last of Us.”
Curry Barker poses for a portrait in New York on Thursday, June 11, 2026. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
FILE - Director Jordan Firstman appears at the photo call for the film "Club Kid" during the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, on May 15, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Kane Parsons arrives at the premiere of "Backrooms" in Santa Monica, Calif., on May 7, 2026. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP) — Their red jerseys stood out against the green pitch. Most were teenage girls. Some had fled war. Others had never played in an organized soccer league or set foot in a major stadium before.
Yet when they took the field at Larbi Zaouli Stadium in Casablanca, Morocco, they marked Sudan’s first appearance in international women’s soccer since a civil war erupted in a country where women’s participation in sports has long been controversial.
“My goal is to lift up soccer in my country,” Nura Mohamed, the 17-year-old team captain, told The Associated Press.
“It’s a beautiful, unique feeling because, at the end of the day, I just love playing.”
Sudan’s under-17 women’s national team traveled to Morocco last week for qualifying matches on the road to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The inexperienced squad suffered heavy defeats against Comoros, conceding 30 goals in two matches. Many of the players broke down in tears after the final whistle in front of a dozen cheering fans.
They faced an older, fitter, and more experienced opponent. Unable to assemble a senior women’s squad in time, Sudan’s soccer federation entered a younger team to avoid forfeiting its place in the qualifiers. They only started training weeks ago.
“The difference between us and the others is huge. We cannot yet compete at the highest level," Burhan Tia, a veteran Sudanese soccer coach who oversees all of Sudan’s women’s national teams, said after the first match, a 17–0 defeat.
“Comoros has many players competing in Europe, our team is mainly made up of schoolgirls."
Sudan’s women’s soccer collapsed when civil war erupted in 2023. For federation officials, debuting this young squad in Casablanca after years of conflict marks an important step in keeping women's soccer alive in Sudan.
“Some traveled long distances just to attend training. Many are separated from their families, yet they continue to work hard and pursue their dream," Manal Ali Bushra, a businesswoman who heads the women’s soccer committee, told the AP.
To support that vision, Ali Bushra said the federation is working on infrastructure projects, including a planned sports city and the renovation of key stadiums in safer parts of the country. She declined to answer questions about the women’s program budget and funds.
Tia knew the magnitude of the challenge when he accepted the job of rebuilding a shattered team.
“First, I had to find girls who played soccer. Then, once I found girls who played, I had to make sure they were the right age,” he said. “Then I needed to convince their parents to let them miss classes for training.”
With the league suspended, his scouting trips took him to schools across Sudan and to neighboring Egypt, where many families had fled the war. He recruited 10 players from teams and academies in Cairo, with the rest drawn from Sudanese cities.
Tia would have liked to recruit from conflict-hit areas like Darfur or Kordofan, a region known for producing Sudan’s top athletes. But many girls had lost their identification documents, making it impossible to verify their ages under international regulations. The war has also shattered transportation, turning journeys between cities that once took hours into perilous trips lasting days.
On the field, the players’ lack of experience was evident. Several struggled with basic positioning, failing to hold the offside line or maintain tactical discipline. Throughout the matches, they repeatedly looked to the sidelines for instructions from the coach and his assistant.
The United Nations has described the war in Sudan as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It began in 2023 when a power struggle between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted into fighting marked by mass killings, rape and ethnic violence. More than 40,000 people have been killed, according to U.N. figures, and over 14 million have been displaced, with famine and disease spreading across parts of the country.
The war halted every sports activity, including the women’s soccer league, which was officially established after the 2019 progressive revolution that ousted President Omar al-Bashir. His three-decade Islamist rule was marked by Public Order Laws that rights groups said restricted women’s freedoms. Even after the revolution, prominent Sudanese preacher Abdulhay Yousif said the establishment of a women’s football league was aimed at undermining religion.
“The idea of women running, jumping, sweating, and even something as simple as their bodies being visible in motion, was seen by Bashir’s Islamist regime as producing fitna, which in a Sudanese context was understood as sexual or moral chaos,” Liv Tønnessen, a political scientist researching gender politics in Sudan, told the AP.
“So when women step onto a soccer pitch, they are directly confronting that entire logic. They are not just present in a male-dominated sports arena, they are moving freely in it, on their own terms,” Tønnessen, a former guest researcher in a women-only university in Sudan, added.
Beyond institutional hurdles, players also faced a wave of sexist abuse online. On the national team’s social media accounts, many commenters mocked them for big defeats. Others posted the phrase “go back to the kitchen,” in multiple languages.
While Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s military government has allowed international soccer trips for teenage girls, the U.N. has documented sexual and gender-based violence by the Sudanese Armed Forces, which he commands.
Tønnessen sees the state backing as a calculated effort by the military to project legitimacy. By sponsoring the team, she said, the army attempts to signal that the state is functioning normally and to align itself with the spirit of the 2019 revolution.
Hala Al-Karib, a prominent Sudanese women’s rights activist, dismissed critics who say the team is being used to portray a more progressive image on women’s rights.
“The main challenge for me is a reform of the federation,” she told the AP, citing a lack of investment in and support for women’s soccer in Sudan.
Back on the field in Casablanca, the politics, war and debate faded away, leaving only a group of teenagers chasing a ball.
Sudan's U-17 women's national team, left, shakes hand with Comorros women's national team, ahead of their soccer match during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team players sing the national anthem before a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team, in red, plays a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team players, in red, defend the ball during a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
Sudan's U-17 women's national team warms up before a soccer match against Comoros, during qualifiers for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, in Casablanca, Morocco, Monday, June 8, 2026. (AP Photo)
