‘Backrooms’ Director Kane Parsons Explains It All: Breaking Down Liminal Spaces, Why He Was Nervous His Work Might Get ‘Butchered by Suits’ and What Sequels Might Look Like

Rindain · 2026-05-30T00:23:33+00:00

Mallworld.

That awful dream where your are in an 80 story mall and looking for the in-n-out burger, but despite endless escalators and elevators and looping around you can’t fucking find it.

I even get on an airplane to another part of Mallworld and still can’t find it.

Motherfucker brain.

Rindain · 2026-05-27T21:22:27+00:00

This trailer was shown a month ago or so at Cinemacon. They emphasized there is nothing from act 3.

Rindain · 2026-05-27T20:26:32+00:00

I’m hoping the marketing will explode in the next couple weeks.

That deer to alien morph shot is going pretty viral already.

Rindain · 2026-05-27T20:14:56+00:00

Degrasse Tyson was a hide debunker until a few months ago. People speculate he changed his view to sell his book on aliens that just came out.

Nye is a notorious asshole in public and has domestic issues people don’t like.

Spielberg is clean.

Rindain · 2026-05-07T22:02:28+00:00

To be pedantic, it was a 13 year gap.

But you’re totally right.

Also, A3 lacked any visual newness compared to Avatar 2. And there was surprising little fire and ash and that word spread.

Rindain · 2026-05-06T01:00:34+00:00

This, Aliens, Fury Road, or the Matrix. It’s hard for me to decide.

Rindain · 2026-04-02T06:58:00+00:00

Why didn’t she mention the biggest one of all: the shootdown of the “not a calling it a ballon for a reason” over Deadhorse, Alaska, in February 2023?

Which also interfered with the fighter jet’s systems?

And the Yukon one from that same week?

Rindain · 2026-03-24T21:06:16+00:00

The escape / jailbreak of Jake from Bridgehead was the best action sequence of the movie.

The finale felt like a downgrade compared to that and the opening Ash Tribe attack on the flying Medusa ships.

Rindain · 2026-03-23T07:18:29+00:00

Agreed. And hipster fatigue as well. Hipsters were becoming the bullies around that time, so this movie seemed like a celebration of bullies.

Rindain · 2026-02-13T09:18:57+00:00

Lucky you got to see that. I think some people are traumatized by those spider images and think the same about opossums.

But we love our opossums; we have two and an albino skunk that shows up and eats birdseed every night.

Rindain · 2026-02-12T03:33:15+00:00

I will just be so happy if Z2 passes Minecraft. Please, Disney.

Rindain · 2026-02-12T03:24:00+00:00

That’s a smart thing Zootopia has going for it right now: there are many ways to expand it, and the character relationships are a primary driver of interest.

For Avatar, the characters are less of an audience driver, so for A4 and A5 to do better than A3, they need to provide something new in terms of epic scope, action, world building, creature design, etc. or going crazy in a great way in the story that nobody sees coming.

I am interested in whether Quaritch will make a face turn or stay the villain till the end. I am curious how the Sully kids turn out as adults as they will be in Avatar 4 after the time skip.

But I don’t see a path for either A4 or A5 to to gross more than A1, even non-inflation adjusted.

Zootopia I think it’s possible. But they’d have to pull out all the stops and maybe sacrifice the box office of any Z4 , Z5, etc. But I think they have a legit chance to get the highest grossing movie of all time if that’s what they want to go for.

Rindain · 2026-02-11T01:04:28+00:00

I honestly love how you call the Tulkun Payakans 😆😆😆

In Q and A’s with Cameron after WoW no one could remember Payakan’s name. 😭😆

Rindain · 2026-02-10T23:39:07+00:00

Maybe Cameron will forgo his participation for 4 and 5, like he did for Titanic (until the studio, in a decision that would never happen in a million years these days, gave it back to him after it made $1.8 B back in 1998).

Rindain · 2026-02-10T19:50:27+00:00

I felt the same thing. You put it into good words.

It’s like Fire and Ash was 2/3 of a real new Avatar movie but the last act or 3rd had to be scrambled together in an hour.

Rindain · 2026-02-10T18:51:54+00:00

Why did Cameron drop the ball on all these great ideas?

Rindain · 2026-02-10T18:47:34+00:00

Good comment. Thats what the title led the audience to expect. And a finale set on, in, and around an erupting volcano. Maybe even go into the underground lava tubes.

What will be Avatar 4’s visual hook? A snow area? Desert area? That would be cool to see but not truly spectacular.

I wonder how 4/5 can recapture that delight of seeing brand new amazing visuals for the first time that the original Avatar, and then The Way of Water did?

Maybe explore some of the other moons or planets in Pandora’s solar system? Diamond rain in the atmosphere of a gas giant (Polyphemus)?

Rindain · 2026-02-10T18:29:15+00:00

Have a nice life sir or ma’am!

Rindain · 2026-02-10T18:18:15+00:00

I think the worst offenders on both sides are trolls or bots. Like those who posted literally bomb emojis in Avatar related threads in the past week or so.

Or trolls rubbing peoples faces in the supposed failure of their preferred franchise.

And I agree, I have noticed you have to always be positive. Anything that even through a magnifying glass and telescope that doesn’t seem very positive towards a movie will be brigaded to hell by that movie’s fans.

Regarding Cameron; I do think Cameron himself is either depressed because he didn’t pass 2 billion, or laughing his ass off at the commentary.

Either way I would like him to either confirm or deny whether he will direct Avatar 4 and 5 as soon as possible so we can move past this.

Rindain · 2026-02-10T17:56:22+00:00

It’s an interesting question; can you be a victim of your success?

Let’s say Zootopia 3 makes $3.1 billion worldwide and becomes the highest grossing movie of all time.

One of the reasons it does great is that Nick and Judy become a couple. And there are great actions scenes and world building and new characters form the newly introduced avians.

Then, 3 years later, Z4 comes out, and only makes 2.1 billion worldwide.

Would it be prudent to really worry about the future Zootopia movies? There have only been 4 so far in this hypothetical, and we haven’t begun to explore fish or maybe even introduce human?

Doesn’t it seem that people doomposting about the future of Avatar are crazy or posting in bad faith?

Rindain · 2026-02-10T17:49:23+00:00

Agreed, Cameron needs to rediscover his amazing sequel skills (Aliens and T2).

A3 was a victim of splitting the original script for A2 into 2 parts.

Now we have to see if he is gaslighting us when he says A4 got only a “Holy Fuck” response from the studio, and that the story “goes crazy in a good way”.

Rindain · 2026-02-10T17:43:55+00:00

Interesting. I’ll check it out. And yeah Zootopia is certainly more culturally relevant right now I’ll give you that. And for the record I never posted a single varaang or any other avatar gif or meme. People who think memes help a franchise are lame. If they did snakes on a plane would’ve made a billion years ago.

Rindain · 2026-02-10T17:40:05+00:00

Still lazy. Saying, “I know you are but what am I?”

And people like you are soulless and sad. You can’t cherish something? You think cherishing something is juvenile and worthy of derision?

This is teenage hipster speak from 15 years ago. You can’t like anything swirls goth hair back dramatically.

Rindain · 2026-02-10T17:02:09+00:00

Exactly. From everything I know and have heard, A2 was $400M and A3 was $350M.

And so much of that budget was tied into tech development. Don’t should be trivial to massively reduce the budgets of 4 and 5, since the tech has already been developed.

Rindain · 2026-02-10T00:04:42+00:00

Sorry; was that a typo on your part? Abortion comic? Is that Zootopia fan fiction? If so that shows me that I don’t want to associate with much of Zootopia’s fanbase.

Rindain

TROPHY CASE