Reddit Horror Story 'My Wife And I Bought A Ranch' Picked Up By Netflix; 'Stranger Things' Team And James Wan To Produce

Everything from podcasts to action figures have spawned hit movies and TV shows, so why not Reddit? A Reddit short horror story My Wife And I Bought a Ranch has been picked up by Netflix, which made a whopping seven-figure commitment to the project. To add to the buzz factor, Stranger Things team Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen of 21 Laps and James Wan will be producing the adaptation. Not bad for a story that spawned from one of the most polarizing places on the internet.

Deadline broke the news that Netflix has won the rights to the Matt Query short story My Wife And I Bought a Ranch, which first appeared in several parts on Reddit. Query's brother Harrison Query is set to write the screenplay. Netflix dropped a whopping seven-figures for the rights to the horror short story, which was at the center of a heated bidding war last week.

The story, which is described as "compelling and creepy in a Stephen King/M. Night Shyamalan way," follows a couple, Harry and Sasha, who buy their dream house in Idaho. Per Deadline: "He's a soldier getting back to life, and they bid what they can, which is a lowball offer. They get the ranch but find they are not alone. Soon they meet their neighbors, who inform them that there is a malevolent spirit in the valley, one that manifests itself by coming to the house in the same manner at the start of each season. There are certain steps that must be followed to keep the spirit out of their house, and the tension and violence grows with each gory ritual as the duel between the spirits and the ex-Marine becomes personal."

My Wife And I Bought a Ranch seems like a fairly standard haunted house story, but it appears to have enough going for it that it drew the attention of the Stranger Things team and James Wan. Levy and Cohen are producing for 21 Laps (which, to be fair, slaps its name on nearly every other Netflix project, with 11 other titles to the banner's name), while James Wan and Michael Clear are set to produce for Atomic Monster. Scott Glassgold and his Ground Control Entertainment are producing.

Let's hope that My Wife And I Bought a Ranch is more of a success story than the last viral property that got adapted to the screen, Slender Man. The fictional supernatural character originated as a creepypasta meme and became the stuff of internet urban legend, but unfortunately the poorly received 2018 movie couldn't replicate that success. But Glassgold and Harrison Query seem to have more of a handle on the production side, having last year sold another project to Netflix, Three Musketeers. We'll have to see if My Wife And I Bought a Ranch becomes another horror success for Netflix.