Hollywood Is Mining YouTube Horror After ‘Backrooms’ Success, and Now Steven Spielberg Has Snapped Up the Film Rights for ‘The Mandela Catalogue’
Now that Backrooms has seen great success, Hollywood is headed back to YouTube to find the next horror feature that will attract Gen Z and Gen Alpha to theaters. The winner? The Mandela Catalogue, created by a then-17-year-old Alex Kister in 2021, which Steven Spielberg just won the film rights to.
While it’s too soon to say when the movie version of The Mandela Catalogue will hit theaters, Kister is set to direct from a screenplay he and Tyler Clifton adapted, so hopefully, the big-screen version will closely follow the original.
Here’s everything to know about The Mandela Catalogue for those unfamiliar with it, along with what’s currently known about the feature film.
What Is ‘The Mandela Catalogue’?
The Mandela Catalogue is another viral analog YouTube series, along the lines of Backrooms or The McKinney Family Home Videos, which became popular in part due to reaction and analysis videos from others on YouTube.
Set in the early 1990s and late 2000s, the plot follows an invasion by otherworldly creatures known as Alternates. Led by a fake Archangel Gabriel, these creatures have come to Earth intending to torture their victims psychologically — often through the manipulation of computers, televisions, and GPS — until their victims die, so the Alternates can take over their identities.
The name of the show comes from the setting — the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin. The series features several biblical allusions, such as the false Archangel Gabriel, and contains 13 shorts altogether. It garnered well over 100 million views, making it one of the most popular analog series on YouTube.
What’s Known About the Film?
Kister actually revealed in 2025 that he had been working on a screenplay for a film adaptation of the series and shared the bare bones of the plot, which will follow a group of high-school graduates. After a student’s disappearance sets off a chain of ominous events, the graduates must fight to maintain their reality. Additionally, Kister explained that the film would feature elements of found footage and traditional live action.
After an incredibly competitive bidding war between 11 studios, Spielberg, along with Amazon MGM Studios and Scott Stuber of United Artists, snapped up the film rights. Spielberg and Stuber are attached as producers, along with Holly Bario and several others.
While it will likely be a while before The Mandela Catalogue appears in theaters, it will be interesting to see if it manages to follow in Backrooms’ footsteps to become another box-office success.
(feature image: A24)
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