Warner Bros. Pictures has come out of a five-studio bidding war victorious, picking up the underlying rights to Siren Head, a viral horror sensation created by Trevor Henderson and which centres on a tall, rotting figure with two sirens (not the mermaid kind) as a head.

Attached to the project is Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger, who is teaming on the script with Brian Duffield. Duffield, whose upcoming survival movie Whalefall already has horror fans buzzing, is set to direct. Cregger will also produce Siren Head alongside Roy Lee and Andrew Childs of Vertigo Entertainment. Scott Glassgold of 12:01 Films will also produce, as well as Duffield via his Jurassic Party Productions.

The frenzy this package sent studios into is proof that internet memes are the next frontier for Hollywood’s horror adaptations, following Backrooms‘ success. It appears to be part of studios’ goal to bring Gen Z audiences back to cinemas, though whether this approach will be successful long-term remains to be seen.

Created by Canadian artist Henderson in 2018, the meme was originally a drawing of a strange cryptid. That was all it took for a host of YouTube animations, fan theories, fan-made shorts, video games, and merch to flood the Internet. This evolved monster mythology is reportedly what attracted Cregger and Duffield to the project.