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, 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 film 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 pushback, Parasite and Anora distributor Neon took a different approach. The studio also announced that it’s developing an anthology film based on the SCP Foundation community’s horror fiction. However, Neon did contact the SCP Wiki’s admin team and pledged to release it under the Foundation’s required Creative Commons ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. The movie is slated to arrive in theaters next year. 

The film will platform emerging filmmakers and showcase the talents of SCPF’s community of creators. It won’t be an “official” SCP film, though, as none of the staff are involved in the production and there’s no compensation involved. The SCP will not be endorsing the film either, as that would run afoul of its own rules. 

“The staff of the SCP Foundation Wiki 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, the admins laid out its issues with A24’s proposed film and said it would “love to sit down with A24, Spooky Pictures, and other involved parties to discuss options for how they could make and distribute a film while complying with CC BY-SA.” 

In case you’re unfamiliar, the SCP Wiki was created in 2008 based on the fictional SCP Foundation, a secret organization that studies dangerous supernatural objects to aid 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’s immobile as long as eye contact is maintained. Others include SCP-096 (The Shy Guy), a tall, eerie (hostile) humanoid that turns violent if anyone sees its face, and SCP-3008, an infinite pocket dimension that resembles an IKEA store, replete with (hostile) staff.