{"id":552246,"date":"2026-06-24T20:40:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/552246\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T20:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:40:15","slug":"what-steven-spielberg-means-to-gen-z-amid-the-rise-of-youtube-filmmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/552246\/","title":{"rendered":"What Steven Spielberg Means to Gen Z Amid the Rise of YouTube Filmmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSteven Spielberg<\/a> is the mind behind some of the biggest and best regarded films in Hollywood history, from blockbusters such as Jurassic Park, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones Franchise to Oscar winners such as Schindler\u2019s List and Saving Private Ryan. His latest film, Disclosure Day<\/a>, arrived June 12, more than 50 years after he invented the blockbuster genre with Jaws.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet a pair of unknown filmmakers have become the surprise box office story of the summer, with the rise of Gen Z<\/a> YouTubers Curry Barker<\/a> (Obsession<\/a>) and Kane Parsons<\/a> (Backrooms<\/a>). Call it a moment of generational shift in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid this backdrop, The Hollywood Reporter spent a Sunday afternoon in New York\u2019s Washington Square Park, a common hangout for the younger crowd, particularly students attending New York University, to discuss the current state of the film industry and their feelings on Spielberg, who at 79 is one of the great living filmmakers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m first going to have to look at some of these movies,\u201d said many of the participants initially \u2014 until THR started to list off his blockbuster r\u00e9sum\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOh! Jaws was genuinely one of the first movies that I remember,\u201d quips Katie Young, a 21-year-old student at the University of Rochester who is interning in the city for the summer.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough for dramatic reasons.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBecause when I was a kid, I thought that when someone died in a movie, they actually died in that movie,\u201d says Young. \u201cThe scene where the guy goes down and he gets torn apart in the cage \u2014 I literally thought that he sacrificed his life for that movie, and I was in tears for like two weeks. Literally. It had such a visceral effect on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSteven Spielberg on the set of Jaws.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEverett<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the impact Spielberg\u2019s films had on Young, she adds that most of her viewings of the director\u2019s films have been because either her parents or a babysitter suggested she watch them.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s tapped in,\u201d she says of Gen Z audiences and the filmmaker. However, she admits, \u201cI think a lot of our generation is really into grassroots things, whether it\u2019s directors from YouTube or low-budget movies. A lot of these big directors, they\u2019re appealing to these broad things, and there\u2019s all these flashing images. I mean, even the Marvel movies, they\u2019re just throwing so much stuff at you. You really feel like they\u2019re not really catering to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNoah Blair, a 21-year-old recent college graduate of the University of Indiana who\u2019s also interning in the city, says, \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<\/p>\n

\n\tTurning to Spielberg, he notes that people his age have seen many of the filmmaker\u2019s movies, but likely were not ravenous fans growing up.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSure, we\u2019ve all watched them, and some people probably grew up watching them all the time, says Blair. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think they\u2019re the movies people my age are going to look back on in 20 years and say, \u2018I watched that all the time.\u2019 They\u2019ll probably think about films that came out more recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, what does Gen Z want to see?<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to Blair, originality, practical filmmaking and emerging voices matter more than franchises and giant visual effects spectacles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat is more attractive to audiences my age than a Marvel, DC or even a big-budget A24 movie at this point. If it\u2019s a movie that doesn\u2019t look like much effort was put into it but has a good story, that\u2019s just way more attractive,\u201d says Blair.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat may help explain why two YouTubers in their 20s became the biggest box office story of the summer.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBackrooms filmmaker Kane Parsons and Obsession filmmaker Curry Barker<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlan Chapman\/Dave Benett\/Getty Images; Amanda Edwards\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tBarker<\/a>, 26, who was already of YouTube fame with his comedy shorts channel That\u2019s a Bad Idea, kicked things off with the release of Obsession on May 15, an original horror film that follows a young guy named Bear (Michael Johnston)<\/a>, who uses a cursed novelty item, One Wish Willow, to wish for his crush, Nikki (Inde Navarrette)<\/a>, to love him more than anyone else in the world. The wish works, but comes with dangerous consequences.<\/p>\n

\n\tComing off its sixth weekend at the box office, Obsession<\/a> has grossed more than $334 million globally on a $750,000 budget, becoming Focus Features\u2019 highest grossing film<\/a> of all time.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo weeks later, Parsons, now 21<\/a>, released Backrooms<\/a>. The film is an adaptation of his viral YouTube short film series and follows a failed architect, Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who stumbles across an endless series of rooms in the furniture store he manages. Backrooms landed the biggest opening in A24 history<\/a> with $81.4 million on a $10 million budget and made Parsons the youngest filmmaker in history to top the domestic box office. Its global haul stands at $276.9 million, the biggest of all time for A24.<\/p>\n

\n\tA couple of weeks after their films hit theaters, Spielberg praised the young filmmakers<\/a> for their accomplishments and said he \u201cloved\u201d Obsession, though he had not yet seen Backrooms.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpielberg can relate to the success they\u2019ve achieved so early in their careers. The Oscar winner was also in his 20s when he directed Jaws (1975), which went on to win three Academy Awards and became the first summer blockbuster.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn another connection with the two filmmakers, Obsession also became the first movie since Spielberg\u2019s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) to have its second and third weekends increase rather than fall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tYet while younger audiences embraced Barker and Parsons, Spielberg\u2019s latest release has struggled to generate the same enthusiasm among Gen Z moviegoers.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn opening weekend, 86 percent of the audience for Backrooms was under 35 and more than half were under 25. In contrast, Disclosure Day\u2019s opening weekend appealed more to older audiences, with 59 percent over 35.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think the reason why so many people went to see Obsession and Backrooms was mainly because of the hype that was built around it,\u201d says Hannah Sperling, a 22-year-old recent NYU film school graduate who watched Spielberg\u2019s movies as part of her curriculum. \u201cBut with Disclosure Day, I think the reason why it\u2019s not going to do as well, in my opinion, would be mainly because of the advertising surrounding it. No one wants to watch a film about the world ending.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the flip side, she adds, \u201cObsession did really well with their marketing. Same with Backrooms being such a viral sensation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt also be the result of younger moviegoers yearning to see work from filmmakers they feel they can actually communicate with.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou could never chat with Steven Spielberg about his movie; that has never been an option. But for modern filmmakers like Curry Barker<\/a>, he replies to comments on [social media]. There\u2019s less of a pedestal,\u201d says Josua Karnbo, a 30-year-old millennial who was in town from Sweden to visit a friend who\u2019s an exchange student for the semester.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe cast of Obsession was also a group of relatively unknowns, something Karnbo wants to see more of, compared to the cast of upcoming summer blockbusters like Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey, which features a star-studded cast including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEveryone in the new Odyssey is super famous,\u201d he says. \u201cI think people enjoy being introduced to brand new actors even more nowadays, knowing that every single person in Odyssey, even the most unimportant role, is going to be played by, like, Matt Damon. It\u2019s so fun to see a movie where you don\u2019t know anyone; everyone feels like regular people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBlair agrees that younger audiences are eager to discover new talent, citing Obsession star Navarrette as someone poised to \u201cblow up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is also a whole online ecosystem surrounding movies that did not exist when Spielberg was starting out, and while that surely helped Obsession and Backrooms, it also can be tiring for audiences.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBack in the day, a movie came out and then you went to watch it. Maybe you read a review in the newspaper or talked to friends who had seen it,\u201d says Karnbo. \u201cNow there\u2019s a constant barrage of Facebook feeds, Instagram posts and ads telling you what to think about it, what others think about it, or the latest controversy surrounding the director or actor. There\u2019s so much media and discourse surrounding everything except the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Gen Z may be gravitating toward YouTubers, indie filmmakers and emerging voices, the consensus among those interviewed was that no one has yet matched Spielberg\u2019s combination of longevity, influence and commercial success.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf you were going to ask someone to be the next Spielberg, they\u2019d have to be able to make as many movies as he made, and they all would have to be hits,\u201d Sperling says. \u201cCurry Barker\u2019s very talented, and Obsession is great, but that can just be luck, too. There\u2019s so many filmmakers I love that make great films, but they just haven\u2019t made the repertoire that Steven Spielberg did.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven Spielberg is the mind behind some of the biggest and best regarded films in Hollywood history, from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[186311,434,31494,125183,18,117,300,19,17,186309,34433,609],"class_list":["post-552246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-backrooms","tag-celebrities","tag-curry-barker","tag-disclosure-day","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-gen-z","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kane-parsons","tag-obsession","tag-steven-spielberg"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}