Neon's SCP Foundation Movie Will Use Creative Commons — Here's What That Means

Neon is developing an SCP Foundation anthology feature for a planned 2027 theatrical release — and the unusual part is not simply that another internet-horror property is moving into cinemas. Neon says the film and related materials will be released under Creative Commons ShareAlike rules.

That matters because the SCP Foundation was never built like a conventional studio-owned franchise. It is a collaborative fiction project written by a large community of authors, and the site’s own licensing system is designed to let other people reuse and build on that work as long as they follow its attribution and ShareAlike requirements.

Neon’s announcement therefore creates a rare situation: a commercial theatrical horror movie is being developed around a fictional universe whose core material is intentionally licensed for reuse.

The project is separate from A24’s recently announced V/H/S: SCP film. It is also not an “official SCP movie” in the sense of being written or produced by SCP Wiki staff.

Hero emblem by far2 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; a pale background was added to the existing site derivative.

What Neon has actually announced

A September 30 report from TheWrap, quoting Neon’s announcement, describes the project as an anthology feature based on the SCP Foundation.

The currently confirmed points are:

• Neon is developing and producing an SCP Foundation anthology movie.
• The company is targeting a theatrical release in 2027.
• The project is intended to spotlight emerging filmmakers.
• Neon says the film and related materials will be released under a Creative Commons ShareAlike license consistent with the SCP project’s licensing model.
• Neon has communicated with the SCP Wiki team about licensing compliance.
• No cast has been announced.
• No individual directors or segment titles have been announced publicly.
• No specific SCP entries have been confirmed for adaptation.
• No exact theatrical date has been announced.

An October 1 report reproducing Neon’s announcement says the company intends to contribute to what it calls an “open-source horror project” while respecting the SCP community’s licensing framework.

That phrase should not be confused with open-source software. In this context, it refers to the unusually permissive Creative Commons structure surrounding SCP fiction.

Why the Creative Commons license is the real story

The SCP Wiki’s official Licensing Guide explains that most SCP content is released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, commonly written as CC BY-SA 3.0.

In practical terms, that means people can reuse, adapt and even commercially distribute material based on SCP content if they comply with the license. The two central requirements are straightforward:

1. Attribution: the original SCP work and its creators must be credited appropriately.
2. ShareAlike: the derivative work must itself be released under the same or a compatible ShareAlike license, as applicable.

That second requirement is what makes Neon’s commitment unusually important for a studio feature.

If the finished movie is in fact released under CC BY-SA as announced, people receiving a lawful copy would have broad rights to share and adapt the licensed material under the same license conditions. Neon has not yet explained the mechanics of future home-video, digital or streaming distribution, so it would be premature to claim exactly how or when redistribution of the finished film will work in practice.

The license allows commercial use, but it does not eliminate every other legal issue. Trademarks, performer rights, music, third-party material and any assets that are not themselves covered by the same license can still require separate handling.

That is why the license should be described precisely rather than reduced to “the movie is free for anyone to do anything with.”

This is not an “official” SCP Foundation movie

The SCP Wiki has an unusual relationship with adaptations because there is no single studio or author who owns the entire fictional universe in the conventional franchise sense.

The site’s own About page describes SCP as a collaborative speculative-fiction project built by hundreds of authors around a fictional secret organization that contains anomalous and supernatural objects, entities and events.

That means “official” can be misleading language.

According to the SCP Wiki staff statement published after Neon’s announcement, wiki staff have provided licensing help and basic guidance, but they are not writing or producing the movie, are not financially participating in the production and do not treat the film as an official extension of the site.

Neon’s film is better understood as an independent adaptation whose announced licensing approach follows the reuse framework that allows countless SCP games, videos and other derivative works to exist.

The distinction also protects an important factual boundary: cooperation over licensing does not mean the SCP Wiki staff have approved the movie’s creative direction, selected its stories or endorsed its eventual interpretation of the universe.

How the separate A24 SCP project fits in

Neon’s September 30 announcement followed the September 11 news of a separate SCP-related movie from A24, Spooky Pictures and Image Nation, revealed as part of the V/H/S anthology franchise.

That project, often referred to as V/H/S: SCP, is not the same film.

The SCP Wiki team said it had not been consulted before the A24 announcement and pushed back on wording that could be read as suggesting exclusive ownership of the SCP setting. The site’s licensing structure does not allow a company to lock up the entire collaborative universe and prevent others from making their own compliant derivative works.

A24, through a statement reported by Tubefilter, said it was not claiming exclusive rights over the SCP universe or its concepts. The company said its worldwide rights language referred to its rights in the next V/H/S movie rather than control over SCP as a whole.

That distinction is important.

It would be inaccurate to say that the existence of Neon’s project proves A24’s movie is unlawful, just as it would be inaccurate to say A24 owns SCP. The relevant question for any SCP adaptation is whether the particular material it uses complies with the applicable Creative Commons and attribution requirements.

Neon’s strategy is notable because it has made its intended licensing approach a central part of the announcement rather than treating it as background paperwork.

What the SCP Foundation actually is

For readers who know SCP mostly through games, YouTube videos or memes, the core project is a writing community rather than a single book series.

Its fiction revolves around the SCP Foundation, a secret organization tasked with securing and containing anomalies that supposedly break ordinary scientific rules. Individual entries are written as classified files, reports, interviews and incident logs, often using clinical bureaucratic language to make impossible events feel procedural.

The site grew out of internet horror communities in the late 2000s and eventually became a large collaborative archive with thousands of works by many authors.

Our SCP Foundation explainer covers that history in more detail.

That makes SCP related to other forms of internet-born horror, but it is not identical to a traditional urban legend. Its fictional framework is explicit and organized, even when individual stories borrow the tone of leaked documents, eyewitness records or conspiracy material.

Morbid Index makes the same distinction in its coverage of Slender Man’s documented online origin and the collaborative history of the Backrooms: internet horror can develop folklore-like circulation without becoming evidence that its fictional entities exist in the real world.

One famous SCP image is specifically not safe to reuse

The Creative Commons structure does not mean every image historically associated with the SCP Wiki can automatically be reused commercially.

The site’s licensing guide explicitly warns about the photograph once used for SCP-173. That image depicted artist Izumi Kato’s work Untitled 2004 and was never covered by the SCP project’s Creative Commons license.

The SCP Wiki removed the image from the article in February 2022, and its licensing guidance specifically says not to use that artwork commercially.

That exception is worth remembering as movie adaptations multiply: the license applies to material actually released under it. It does not magically absorb outside artwork, music, trademarks or other third-party rights.

What is still unknown about Neon’s movie

Despite the major licensing announcement, the creative shape of the film remains mostly unrevealed.

Neon has not publicly announced:

• the individual anthology filmmakers;
• the cast;
• which SCP files or stories will be adapted;
• how many segments the anthology will contain;
• a production start date;
• an exact 2027 release date;
• a trailer or first-look image;
• how the CC BY-SA release will interact with later digital and streaming distribution.

Those unknowns should remain unknown until the studio, filmmakers or properly attributed creators provide answers.

For now, the central confirmed development is already unusual enough: Neon is building a theatrical SCP anthology around the same ShareAlike principle that helped the SCP Foundation become one of the internet’s largest collaborative horror universes.

Sources & further reading

• TheWrap: Neon anthology announcement (September 30, 2026)
• SCP Wiki staff: Statement on NEON film
• SCP Wiki staff: Statement on V/H/S film
• SCP Wiki Licensing Guide
• SCP Wiki: About the SCP Foundation
• Deadline: Neon SCP Foundation Movie Counters A24's With Open-Source Production (September 30, 2026)
• Variety: SCP Foundation Anthology Movie in the Works at Neon (September 30, 2026)
• io9/Gizmodo via AOL: The SCP Foundation Has Formed a New Creative Partnership With Neon (October 1, 2026 update)
• Tubefilter: Neon's SCP Foundation film follows A24 announcement (September 30, 2026)
• Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 deed