Eleven studios competed for the rights to the viral horror series The Mandela Catalogue in the second week of July. Alex Kister’s analogue horror from 2021 has amassed more than 100 million views, according to TheWrap.
From the competing bids, Amazon MGM Studios and Scott Stuber’s United Artists took the series. Kister remains in the director’s chair and as co-writer for the feature version, writing the script with Tyler Clifton. Among the producers are Steven Spielberg and Holly Bario for Amblin Entertainment.
A day earlier the studio Warner Bros. announced a similar move. According to a report on Kotaku, it bought the rights to Siren Head, the viral horror character created by illustrator Trevor Henderson, in a five-way contest. The film is directed by Brian Duffield, and the screenplay is based on a story by Zach Cregger.
Backrooms set the price of internet horror
The driving force behind this hunt is the box office of a single film. The Backrooms, the adaptation of Kane Parsons’ analogue horror, was released by the studio A24, and according to Kotaku it grossed over $330 million worldwide on a low budget. For studios, this is proof that a community a creator has built online for years around their world will also come to the cinema for its feature version.
The Mandela Catalogue and Siren Head grew out of the same scene. TheWrap places Kister’s series among the defining titles of the genre, alongside Local 58 and Backrooms. It is a narrow segment in which the creator and their audience carry the brand name. Studios gain a ready-made fan base with verified reach. This shortens the most expensive part of every new film, which is building interest before the premiere.
Creators keep the brand and the direction
The difference from a classic adaptation lies in who has a say over the final form. Kister directs and co-writes his own world, while Henderson stands at the origin of the brand that Warner Bros. is taking on. The rights are bought from an individual who drew the character and spread it online, and that person’s bargaining position is determined by ownership of the original material.
This turns viral horror into an asset class that major studios compete for at auction. Backrooms at A24 showed the price, and the simultaneous auctions for this year’s two rights show the demand. Hollywood is looking for the next Parsons and is willing to pay for raw material in a competitive process, with tens of millions of views as its only track record.
Ownership of rights as a portable lever
The mechanism holds wherever the creator is based. Whoever holds the rights to their own world, character or format negotiates from the position of an owner. A European creator with a viral horror, an animated world or a recognisable format has the same leverage as Kister or Henderson, provided they keep the brand in their own hands and do not sign it over to a platform.
So far these auctions are being won by American studios over American creators. The signal for the European creator economy lies in when the value is created. Studios pay for the audience and the world that the creator built over years, long before the sale itself. For anyone building a brand with an audience, this is the argument for holding on to the rights firmly.
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