Warner Bros. has snapped up Siren Head, a feature package based on the viral horror meme from Trevor Henderson, which has Brian Duffield set to direct from a script co-written with Zach Cregger, Deadline can confirm.

Sources said the project, based an original take by Cregger, landed at the studio following a five-way bidding war. Cregger and Duffield will produce alongside Roy Lee, Andrew Childs, and Scott Glassgold, with rights holder Henderson exec producing.

Siren Head is the kind of youth-oriented, internet-rooted horror IP that studios are chasing urgently following A24’s success with Backrooms, the breakout horror film adapted by 21-year-old Kane Parsons from his creepypasta-inspired YouTube shorts.

Unveiled in August 2018 by Henderson, a Canadian horror artist and illustrator, the Siren Head IP revolves around hand-drawn monsters digitally composited into real photographs. The character is a roughly 40-foot-tall, gaunt, emaciated humanoid figure — a predator hunting in rural towns and wooded areas across North America, which blends into environments and emits creepily distorted audio broadcasts to confuse and lure in prey.

Siren Head‘s rise to mainstream visibility was accelerated by Markiplier, the content creator behind this year’s indie breakout Iron Lung, who began covering the property on his YouTube channel in 2020. From there, it’s become a fixture of horror content across social media, with fan-generated content racking up many millions of views.

Heretofore best known for No One Will Save You, the Kaitlyn Dever-led sci-fi horror film for 20th/Hulu, Duffield has the buzzy survival thriller Whalefall, based on the novel by Daniel Kraus, coming up for release via 20th on October 16. Cregger, meanwhile, releases his Resident Evil movie starring Whalefall‘s Austin Abrams on September 18.

THR was first to the news on Siren Head.