Hollywood has found its newest obsession and this meme won’t be found in any internet backrooms.
Coming out on top of a five-studio bidding war with a massive, multi-million dollar deal, Warner Bros. Pictures has picked up the underlying rights to Siren Head, a viral horror meme created by creature designer Trevor Henderson that centers on a tall, rotting skeletal figure with, wait for it, two sirens as a head.
Making this package even more exciting to studios was the heavy hitting talent attached. Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger is teaming on the script with Brian Duffield, whose upcoming survival movie Whalefall is already generating buzz. The plan would be for Duffield to direct.
Cregger will also produce the feature along with Roy Lee and Andrew Childs of Vertigo Entertainment, the production company that produced Weapons. Scott Glassgold of 12:01 Films, which specializes in finding Hollywood-friendly material on the internet, will also produce. Duffield will produce via his banner, Jurassic Party Productions.
The rights and producer and talent package only came together last week with bidding shooting up like fireworks on the 4th of July. The intensity of the bidding, and its high price, shows not only the strength of the players involved but also demonstrates how internet memes have become a highly mineable source material for Hollywood movies.
In fact, Siren Head seems poised to be the first deal of this nature following the success of Backrooms, which helped kick off the trend with its starry $81.4 million opening on May 29. The rights deal alone is said to be in the low seven figures and the auction brought out all the big studios, including Sony, Universal, Paramount, and Disney’s 20th Century Studios, which is behind Duffield’s Whalefall. A theatrical release was key in the deal, which excluded the involvement of the big streamers.
At Warners, the package initially caught the attention of the execs at WB Clockwork, the new specialty division at the studio, but as the scope grew, they turned to big Warners onto the chase.
Created by Canadian artist Henderson in 2018, the meme was originally a drawing of a unique-looking cryptid. Once Henderson put it on the internet, it took off in an unexpected way beyond anyone’s comprehension. Before long, there were not just YouTube animations but fan theories, fan-made shorts, fan-made video games, and a slew of fan made merch as young Gen Z-ers became fixated with it, to the bewilderment of their parents.
“My 6 yr old has been obsessed with this Sirenhead thing for the past month after he watched a horror video about it. He says he wants the movie and I have no idea what is it. Does anybody else know what it is?” wrote one Reddit user. That was six years ago.
By some accounts, the viral phenomenon featuring this predatory creature that lurks in rural, wooded areas and that blares out various recordings, has racked up 3 billion TikTok views, one billion YouTube views, and millions of Roblox plays.
The deal isn’t just a play for some hot meme, however. Siren Head has evolved into its own monster mythology, whose allure attracted Cregger and Duffield. The duo are said to have found a take into the world that jazzed them into collaborating and in turn, excited the studios into bidding.
Finding what will bring Gen Z to theaters has become a Hollywood focus thanks to the unexpected success of Backroooms, directed by Kane Parsons, and Obsession, directed Curry Barker. Both gained followings with their YouTube horror shorts. The Gen Z movie audience is nascent but all-important as millennials and their preferences, which include superhero movies and YA dystopian romances, give way to the next generation.
Glassgold and Henderson have a longstanding creative partnership as the two collaborated on Sony’s 2024 film, Tarot. Glassgold produced, and also hired Henderson to create all nine of Tarot’s monsters.
Verve Talent Agency, which reps Henderson, oversaw the rights auction. This is the second gigantic horror IP bidding war Verve was at the center of this year, the prior being Texas Chainsaw Massacre which went to A24 in five-way studio bidding war.
Cregger is repped by CAA and Jackoway Austen, while Duffield is repped by UTA, Circle of Confusion and Howard Abramson. Vertigo is repped by CAA and Aron Baumel, while 12:01 is repped by Verve and attorney Jeff Frankel. Henderson is additionally repped by manager Josh Dove and attorney Marios Rush.
