{"id":102304,"date":"2026-07-11T04:04:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T04:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/102304\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T04:04:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T04:04:29","slug":"christopher-nolan-obsession-backrooms-prove-moviegoers-reject-ai-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/102304\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan: Obsession, Backrooms Prove Moviegoers Reject ‘AI Slop’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChristopher Nolan<\/a> is the latest major filmmaker to praise the breakout horror hits Obsession and Backrooms.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a new interview with The Telegraph<\/a> promoting his upcoming epic The Odyssey, Nolan reflected on the lengths he went to in order to make the film feel authentic, including traveling the world and assembling a \u201ccast of thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think cinema is vital and essential and continues to transform itself,\u201d the Oscar winner said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got all these great new young voices in movies, making the medium their own and moving it forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe article states that Nolan pointed to Curry Barker<\/a> and Kane Parsons<\/a> \u2014 the filmmakers behind Obsession and Backrooms \u2014 as evidence that \u201cthings are on the right track.\u201d Both horror films have made history at the box office.<\/p>\n

\n\tBarker\u2019s Obsession, released May 15, has grossed more than $400 million globally on a $750,000 budget. The film became the highest-grossing festival acquisition of all time<\/a> after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and is now Focus Features\u2019 highest-grossing<\/a> release ever.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Parsons\u2019 Backrooms has surpassed $350 million globally and is A24\u2019s highest-grossing film<\/a> in a number of countries. Parsons, 21, also became the youngest director to top the domestic box office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is why I never bought into the arguments that young audiences\u2019 attention spans are too fried to enjoy a three-hour Greek epic,\u201d Nolan said. \u201cThose films are so mysterious and ruminative. I mean, parts of Backrooms are like David Lynch at his most obscure. And yet young people can\u2019t get enough of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Oppenheimer director continued: \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime. So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI<\/a>, but if you look at that generation\u2019s reaction, they\u2019re utterly rejecting it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNolan also cited his children, who are in their late teens and early 20s, as examples.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTheir judgment of AI slop has been immediate and harsh. They see it for what it is very quickly \u2014 and it\u2019s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhile that doesn\u2019t mean that every aspect of the technology is useless or meaningless, in filmmaking it\u2019s hitting at exactly the wrong time. After years of driving towards heavily virtual environments, we\u2019re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more real forms of storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat sentiment was echoed when The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Gen Z<\/a> moviegoers about the rise of younger filmmakers like Barker and Parsons.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAudiences in general, but especially audiences my age, are getting so overwhelmed by all of the CGI movies \u2014 the Marvel epidemic. It really deterred a lot of people from wanting to go and see these big-budget movies,\u201d one moviegoer said.<\/p>\n

\n\tNolan isn\u2019t the only legendary filmmaker championing the next generation of talent. Steven Spielberg also recently praised Obsession<\/a>, saying he \u201cloved\u201d the film and applauded Barker for making it on a budget of less than $1 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs far as Nolan\u2019s next film,\u00a0The Odyssey<\/a> tells the story of Odysseus\u2019 long, torturous trip back to Ithaca after the Trojan War to save his wife Penelope and son Telemachus. Its star-studded cast includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, Travis Scott, Elliot Page, Lupita Nyong\u2019o and more.<\/p>\n

\n\tCheck out all of\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter\u2018s\u00a0Obsession\u00a0coverage here<\/a> and Backrooms<\/a>\u00a0coverage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan is the latest major filmmaker to praise the breakout horror hits Obsession and Backrooms. In a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,35254,53201,45824,35255,23935],"class_list":["post-102304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-backrooms","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-curry-barker","tag-kane-parsons","tag-obsession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}