Backrooms Director Eyes Popular Video Game for Film Adaptation
First-time feature director Kane Parsons achieved major success with the recent release of Backrooms, which quickly became A24's highest grossing film of all time at the domestic box office. Now, the 20-year-old is discussing the possibility of a sequel to the liminal space horror flick and sharing his idea of a follow-up dream project.
In an interview with Kyle Buchanan of The New York Times,Parsons shares that he would like to turn a popular video game franchise into a feature length film. He names Portal, a game that first released in 2007 for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, as a major inspiration for his filmmaking.
That much is evident in Backrooms alone, as the characters played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Lukita Maxwell, and Avan Jogia find a portal that leads to an alternative reality. Speaking with Letterboxd in late May, Parsons confirms that the puzzle game was one of his earliest influences.
"It's the easiest one for me to pin down as the strongest influence over, like, everything I've done in my entire life," Parsons tells Letterboxd, highlighting the set design and "bleak creative choices" that add to the inherently eerie nature of the video game. The director specifies that the sequel, Portal 2, served as even more of an inspiration than its predecessor.
Still, Parsons feels like he needs to finish the Backrooms story before moving onto another franchise. "I deeply enjoy working on it," he tells The New York Times. A sequel to the movie has already been confirmed, though it's still uncertain when the pre-production process will begin.
But that doesn't mean that the wheels aren't already turning on a deal to secure the rights to the Portal video game franchise. While on The Town podcast, Parsons hinted that "stuff may already be moving a little bit," regarding a pre-existing IP that he would like to work on. Buchanan later posted on X, seemingly confirmed that Parsons was referring to Portal. "I asked him in early May if he'd be interested in directing that and he said he was already looking into it 'with a lot of caution and a lot of curiosity,'" the tweet reads.
I've seen people speculate that Kane Parsons is referring to a potential Portal movie here… I asked him in early May if he'd be interested in directing that and he said he was already looking into it "with a lot of caution and a lot of curiosity" https://t.co/wx2l59N70R
— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) June 5, 2026
With much of the conversation surrounding Backrooms focusing on the production design of the film, Portal seems like a natural next step for the young auteur. The general set construction of the Portal games is something that's been in my brain for so long," he tells Letterboxd, "it feels like an internal indoors."
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This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 10:48 AM.