The Ultimate Slender Man Rival Is Getting A New Movie From Weapons Director

Warner Bros. is developing a new horror film based on an Internet meme that rivals Slender Man.

In 2018, Sony released the widely panned Slender Man, based on the viral creepypasta meme of the same name. The movie, which grossed $51.7 million, centers on a group of teen girls who attempt to debunk the horrifying urban legend but end up discovering that Slender Man is real after they start having hallucinations.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. won a multi-million-dollar bidding war against Sony, Universal, 20th Century Studios, and Paramount for the rights to Siren Head, which will be co-written by Zach Cregger and Brian Duffield, with Duffield expected to also serve as director. The producing team will include Cregger, Duffield, Roy Lee, Andrew Childs, and Scott Glassgold.

Cregger is best known for directing and writing the hit horror film Weapons and the upcoming Resident Evil reboot, while Duffield has worked on The Divergent Series: Insurgent, Cocaine Bear, and the upcoming film, Whalefall, which releases in theaters on October 16. The report also confirms that Siren Head will get a theatrical release instead of going straight to a streaming service.

The original Siren Head Internet meme was created by Trevor Henderson in 2018. The skeletal creature is 40 feet tall, very thin, has two megaphones (the titular siren) in place of a head, and slinks around in the woods.

The character became a hit online with Gen Z, similar to the popularity of Slender Man with certain segments of Millennials and Gen Z in the early-to-mid-2010s. Some created their own Siren Head content, including shorts and video games, which have garnered billions of views on platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

Thanks to Gen Z, the horror genre is experiencing a resurgence this year, with films like Backrooms and Obsession becoming huge hits. Like Slender Man and Siren Head, Backrooms also got its start on the Internet. Kane Parsons then created his own web series based on the popular creepypasta and released 24 episodes from 2022 to 2025.

Very quickly, movie studios expressed interest in turning Backrooms into a feature film. Parsons signed a deal with A24 to direct, with high-profile names like James Wan and Shawn Levy coming on board as producers.

With a cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, Avan Jogia, and Robert Bobroczkyi, the Backrooms movie was just released in May and opened at No. 1 with a global opening weekend gross of $118 million and $81 million domestically, knocking The Mandalorian and Grogu out of the top spot at the box office.

Slender Man may not sound like a box office hit, but after the success of Backrooms and Obsession, which earned $374 million so far, studios are searching for the next big horror sensation that will appeal to Gen Z. Warner Bros. has its sights set on Siren Head, which does not have a release date or cast yet.