Creepy internet memes are redefining the boundaries of folklore and urban legends, creating figures and stories that take on lives of their own outside of their original creators’ hands. None has permeated the public consciousness perhaps, than the elongated, faceless figure known as the Slenderman. Sony’s genre tributary, Screen Gems has been developing a feature film based on the character for a while now, and things are now moving along nicely, with a director now locked in the form of Sylvain White.
While White scored his biggest hit with Jeffrey Dean Morgan/Zoe Saldana actioner The Losers in 2010, his earlier career saw him direct 2006 franchise last hurrah I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, before making his theatrical feature debut with 2007 sleeper hit Stomp The Yard. More recently he has worked a lot in TV, directing episodes of Sleepy Hollow, Hawaii Five-O and The Following among others.
Screen Gems acquired the screen rights to the character from original rights holders Mythology Entertainment. Bradley Fischer, James Vanderbilt, and William Sherak are producing the film for Mythology along with Madhouse’s Robyn Meisinger and No Dream’s Sarah Snow.
The Slenderman is also the subject of upcoming HBO doc Beware The Slenderman, which focuses on the digital age’s influence over the imaginations and sometimes actions of young people. It centres around the much publicised stabbing of a 12-year-old girl by two classmates that occurred in Wisconsin in 2014. When quizzed by police, the girls said that The Slenderman made them do it. The crime hit headlines and propelled the fabled online entity into the public consciousness.
Expect more on Screen Gems’ film in the coming months.
Words: Kevan Farrow (@KevanX)
