Sony's TriStar Pictures has acquired the rights to Cartoon Cat, a viral internet horror creature created by Trevor Henderson, with a director search now underway, according to Collider.
The move comes after a run of YouTube-based horror projects have proven themselves at the box office in 2026. A24's Backrooms, directed by Kane Parsons, turned a $10 million budget into $367 million worldwide. Parsons, who is 20 years old, became the youngest director ever to claim the No. 1 spot on the North American box office charts with the film, which originated from a YouTube series based on a viral internet Creepypasta.
Parsons was not the only online creator to find success this year. Markiplier, whose real name is Mark Fischbach, directed Iron Lung, and Focus Features released Obsession, directed by Curry Barker, which turned a sub-$1 million budget into over $425 million worldwide.
Cartoon Cat comes from the same creator as Siren Head, another Henderson creature that recently landed at Warner Bros. after a five-way studio bidding war. Zach Cregger, who directed Weapons, is attached to that project.
For the Cartoon Cat film, the creature was described in a Deadline report as an "ancient hollow rot that uses the collective human awareness and memories of old cartoons as a passageway to manifest into our reality and wreak violent havoc." Henderson previously worked with Sony as a concept artist on Screen Gems' Tarot, which gives him an existing relationship with the studio.
No director has been attached to the Cartoon Cat project yet.