Hollywood is increasingly turning to the Internet for story ideas, with one of the latest being A24’s Backrooms from web series creator Kane Parsons. Now the studios are turning to the horror fiction site SCP Foundation and showing how dealing with that community can go right and wrong.
On the “wrong” side, A24 recently ruffled feathers when it unveiled an SCP Foundation-based V/H/S movie without contacting the SCP Wiki team or promising to release it under an open source license as required. That prompted criticism from the community and a warning about licensing restrictions from SCP Wiki’s admin team.
After that setback, Parasite in the Anora Distributor Neon took a different approach. The studio also announced that it is developing an anthology film based on the horror fiction of the SCP Foundation community. However, Neon contacted the administrative team of the SCP Wiki and agreed to release it under the foundation’s required Creative Commons ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. The film is slated to hit theaters next year.
The film will platform emerging filmmakers and showcase the talents of the SCPF community of creators. However, it will not be an “official” SCP film, as none of the employees are involved in the production and no compensation is involved. The SCP will not support the film either, as that would violate its own rules.
“The SCP Foundation Wiki staff and our community appreciate Neon’s excellent communication and commitment to following the requirements of our license as well as the spirit of collaboration at the core of the SCP Foundation project,” the SCP Wiki admin team wrote in a statement. In a separate post, administrators outlined their issues with A24’s proposed film and said it would “like to sit down with A24, Spooky Pictures, and other involved parties to discuss options for how to make and distribute a film while complying with CC BY-SA.”
In case you’re not familiar, the SCP Wiki was created in 2008 based on the fictional SCP Foundation, a secret organization that studies dangerous supernatural objects to help humanity. Each SCP has its own page and number. Some examples of those objects include the site’s original monster, SCP-173, a hostile concrete statue that is immobile as long as eye contact. Others include SCP-096 (The Shy Guy), a large, creepy (hostile) humanoid that becomes violent when anyone sees its face, and SCP-3008, an infinite pocket dimension that resembles an IKEA store, full of (hostile) staff.