The Already-Forgotten Momo Challenge Spawns Two New Movies

If you were ever so slightly busy in the last 12 months, you may have missed hearing about the Momo Challenge, an old wives' tale updated for Gen X parents which claimed that a bird-legged witch named Momo would hunt their tablet-hugging children through YouTube and kill them with viral stunts. But in an age in which a Slender Man creepypasta can gross over $50 million worldwide, this flash in the pan is apparently big enough to hatch not one but two wholly separate movie projects.

Deadline has announced that the people who brought us The Ring and The Grudge are developing a Momo movie based on the Keisuke Aiso sculpture that inspired the urban legend. Which is not to be confused with the other upcoming Momo movie, which is based on the urban legend that was inspired by the sculpture -- obviously totally different concept.

Getaway, which is already in production and set to release next year, revolves around a bunch of teens who go to a cabin in the woods, where the viral bogeywoman makes them do the Momo challenge -- i.e. pressure them into doing a series of self-harming dares (maybe like driving into traffic blindfolded), likely ending in their deaths. And with a horror plot so incredibly generic, the movie's obviously putting all of its bird-woman eggs in the basket that 2020 audience will still be interested in a meme that's already so far out everybody's mind that the only way they'll realize this was based on a YouTube thing from 2018 is if Logan Paul shows up to take selfies with the corpses.

Prudently, the newest (sigh) Momo movie may be avoiding this problem by focusing more on the Japanese folklore that inspired Aiso's "Bird Mother" statue. A malevolent bird/woman spirit who died in childbirth invades homes to steal other people's children. Since this one's from the producers from The Ring, the OG movie about a scary internet hoax dressed up as an ancient Japanese demon spirit, the only new thing about will be that the Gen Y version of the iconic creepy well girl with long black hair is going to be a molten Melania Trump Halloween mask fused to a chicken butt.

So in summary: The viral hoax that copied another viral hoax and was immediately forgotten is getting two horror movies which are also bland copies of other horror movies -- but completely different, of course! We'd say it's art imitating life, but we wouldn't want to get sued for libel by the concept of art.

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