TriStar Pre-Emptively Lands Cartoon Cat Feature Rights
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- TriStar Pictures pre-emptively acquired feature rights to Trevor Henderson's "Cartoon Cat," described in the deal as "an ancient hollow rot" that uses "the collective human awareness and memories of old cartoons as a passageway to manifest into our reality"
- Henderson has now landed two major feature deals in two weeks: the Cartoons Cat pickup at TriStar and a five-way studio bidding war that placed Siren Head at Warner Bros, with Zach Cregger and Brian Duffield attached
- TriStar is fast-tracking the project and actively searching for a filmmaker, with studio executives Nicole Brown and Malcolm Gray overseeing development
- Producers on Cartoon Cat include Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Scott Glassgold, J. Todd Harris, Thomas Pettinelli, and Marc Marcum; Lee and Glassgold are also attached to Siren Head
- Sony has a prior working relationship with Henderson through his concept art on Screen Gems' "Tarot," and YouTuber Markiplier is credited as an early booster who helped build Henderson's viral following alongside "billions of views" of his creature designs online
Why it matters: Back-to-back pre-emptive and bidding-war acquisitions of Henderson's creature designs signal Hollywood's accelerating appetite for viral internet horror IP, with the Cartoon Cat deal fast-tracked to capitalize on the "Siren Head" heat. For Henderson, a creature designer with no prior credited features, the two deals make him a multi-franchise creator attached to projects at both Warner Bros and Sony within a single fortnight.
