{"id":813823,"date":"2026-10-25T21:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T21:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813823\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T21:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T21:54:09","slug":"lights-out-blazed-trail-from-youtube-to-studio-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/813823\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Lights Out\u2019 Blazed Trail From YouTube to Studio Hit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThis year, audiences flocked to features by filmmakers who cut their teeth on online shorts, like Curry Barker (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/obsession\/\" id=\"auto-tag_obsession_1\" data-tag=\"obsession\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Obsession<\/a>), Kane Parsons (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/backrooms\/\" id=\"auto-tag_backrooms_1\" data-tag=\"backrooms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Backrooms<\/a>) and Markiplier (Iron Lung). But they follow in the footsteps of David F. Sandberg, whose 2016 Lights Out was the first studio-backed horror movie to originate as a YouTube short. The Swedish native\u2019s two-and-a-half-minute film starred his wife, Lotta Losten, as a woman stalked by a mysterious figure when the lights go out. After making the short on virtually no budget, Sandberg entered it in the Bloody Cuts Horror Challenge, winning best director. Months later, a Reddit post linked to it, page views skyrocketed from 8,000 to more than a million and Hollywood came calling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe couple credits the short\u2019s global appeal to its lack of dialogue: \u201cIt just floated around the world because I don\u2019t say anything,\u201d Losten tells THR. Sandberg heard from producer Lawrence Grey, who wanted to collaborate with James Wan on a big-screen version. Sandberg worked with screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Arrival) to turn it into a feature that would star Teresa Palmer, Billy Burke, Gabriel Bateman and Maria Bello. During test screenings, the team was flummoxed by low scores, but after they cut the final few minutes that showed the spirit returning, \u201cThe scores went up 30 points,\u201d Sandberg recalls. \u201cIt was like, \u2018I guess that\u2019s the ending.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tWarner Bros. released Lights Out on July 22, 2016, and it grossed $148 million globally on a $4 million budget. With a sequel still in the works, Sandberg, who later helmed Shazam!, offers this advice to young filmmakers: \u201cKeep creating because you never know what\u2019s going to resonate. We didn\u2019t know that Lights Out was going to work.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThis story appeared in the Oct. 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. <a href=\"https:\/\/subscriptions.hollywoodreporter.com\/site\/thr-subscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year, audiences flocked to features by filmmakers who cut their teeth on online shorts, like Curry Barker&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[161206,96,267150,2839,14159,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-813823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-backrooms","tag-entertainment","tag-hollywood-flashback","tag-movies","tag-obsession","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}