Warner Bros. Just Turned Hollywood’s Creepiest Internet Cryptid Into a Movie Deal
Internet-born horror has officially become one of Hollywood’s most bankable trends, and the latest proof is impossible to ignore. Studios have been scrambling to replicate the success of low budget, creator driven horror ever since ‘Backrooms’ turned a YouTube phenomenon into a genuine box office force, and that scramble just intensified in a very big way.
The trend traces back to ‘Backrooms,’ the breakout hit directed by 21 year old Kane Parsons that grew out of his creepypasta inspired YouTube shorts and has since grossed over $330 million worldwide. That kind of return on a project rooted in internet folklore convinced studios that the next viral creature could be just as lucrative, and it set off a frantic search for the right property and the right filmmakers to pull it off.
That search has now landed on ‘Siren Head.’ Warner Bros. Pictures has picked up the underlying rights to the character after coming out on top of a five studio bidding war, in a massive, multi million dollar deal. The creature, created by designer Trevor Henderson, centers on a tall, rotting skeletal figure with two sirens as a head, and it has become one of the most recognizable faces of modern internet horror.
The talent attached is what really turned heads across the industry. ‘Weapons’ filmmaker Zach Cregger is teaming on the script with Brian Duffield, whose upcoming survival movie ‘Whalefall’ is already generating buzz, with the plan for Duffield to direct. Cregger is fresh off major acclaim, having written and directed last summer’s breakout hit ‘Weapons,’ which went on to win an Oscar for Amy Madigan. Duffield, meanwhile, is best known for ‘No One Will Save You’ and is preparing ‘Whalefall,’ an adaptation about a scuba diver who gets swallowed by a whale, starring Josh Brolin and Austin Abrams.
Cregger will also produce the feature alongside Roy Lee and Andrew Childs of Vertigo Entertainment, the production company behind ‘Weapons’, with Scott Glassgold joining as producer and Henderson signing on to executive produce. According to reporting, Cregger and Duffield found a shared take on the character’s world that excited both the filmmakers and the studios bidding for it.
‘Siren Head’ was first posted online by Henderson in 2018 as an image of a giant, lanky cryptid, and it has since exploded into something much bigger than a single drawing. The character has reportedly racked up over 3 billion TikTok views and more than a billion views on YouTube, spawning fan animations, games, and merch along the way. That scale of engagement is exactly why a theatrical release was central to the deal, which pointedly excluded the major streamers.
No release date has been set yet, but the pairing of Cregger and Duffield already has fans buzzing about what a big screen ‘Siren Head’ could actually look like. Do you think this towering, siren headed nightmare has what it takes to become horror’s next major franchise face?
