In a stunner of a move and a notable shift in strategy, Sony Pictures has hired veteran YouTube executive Fede Goldenberg to lead Screen Gems, its division specializing in genre movies such as Resident Evil and Underworld and comedies such as Easy A.

Under the new creative strategy, the film label will expand its longstanding focus on traditional genre films to include theatrical projects from the next generation of so called “digital-native storytellers,” meaning filmmakers who are making names — and gaining followers — in the digital content space a la Curry Barker and Kane Parsons.

Ashley Brucks, who has been running the label as president since 2023, will transition to a producing role.

Reporting to Sony Pictures motion picture group president Sanford Panitch, Goldenberg will, according to the studio, leverage his deep relationships with content creators to broaden the studio’s pipeline of filmmaker talent and develop theatrical movies from creators who have cultivated devoted audiences through original stories and immersive worlds online.

Digital filmmakers storming the Hollywood box office has been one of the biggest entertainment stories of the year. The outsized performance of movies such as Obsession and Backrooms sparked a rabid interest from studios in a generation of filmmakers who did not come up the traditional latter, but instead rose up making short-form content on digital platforms.

Goldenberg’s hiring marks the first time a studio division has reoriented itself toward this new talent pool.

“Some of the most exciting new filmmakers and ideas are emerging from creators outside of traditional Hollywood development pipelines,” said Panitch in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Screen Gems has long been a home for distinctive genre storytelling, and we see tremendous potential in expanding that vision to include a new generation of digital-native creators with theatrical ambitions.”

The studio is leaning into an already-built-in audience relationship these young filmmakers bring with them. Why expend so much money convincing an audience to trust what a studio is selling when a digital filmmaker has already established that trust with their millions of followers? And these filmmakers are adept at creating IP.

Regarding Goldenberg, Panitch added, “Fede has spent his career at the intersection of online creators and entertainment, and he is uniquely suited to build those relationships and help translate great storytelling from digital platforms to the big screen.”

Goldenberg, whose title at Google-owned YouTube was head of film and TV partnerships, is credited as a guiding hand in elevating the careers of Barker, Parsons and Markiplier into the coveted filmmakers they became this year. “It’s no exaggeration to call these guys the New Hollywood,” the executive said in a THR profile earlier this year.

“After 15 years at YouTube, the world’s biggest digital platform, I know firsthand that the next generation of great filmmakers is already building audiences on the platform. Expanding Screen Gems’ creative vision to include digital-native creators is the right move at the right moment, and I’m excited to join the incredible team at Sony to help lead that effort,” stated Goldenberg.

The Brazil-born Goldenberg brings more than 20 years of experience across entertainment, technology and digital media, including 15 years at YouTube, where he has held a series of senior content partnership roles. He has been head of TV & film content partnerships since 2017, working closely with major studios to scale their global footprints across the platform. He also drove major creator initiatives, among them Markiplier’s exclusive digital release of the theatrical hit Iron Lung on YouTube. And he was one of the executives responsible for the platform acquiring the rights to air the Oscars via a deal with the AMPAS.

Goldenberg’s early tenure at YouTube included managing partnerships with channels such as Maker Studios and Fullscreen. Prior to that, he held posts at Globosat, Terra Networks Brasil and FremantleMedia Latin America.

Brucks is a former Paramount exec with plenty of genre experience, known for bringing in the original Paranormal Activity, the found footage horror movie that begat a nearly $1 billion franchise, and overseeing the A Quiet Place and Scream franchises.

Under her three-year tenure, Screen Gems released the money-making horror movie Tarot and box office hit, Insidious: Out of the Further. The scope of her new producing deal is unclear.

“Ashley will continue her relationship with the studio as a producer on several films, bringing her expertise and distinctive genre taste to all the labels,” Panitch said.

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s an interesting order: FX has set Havana Rose Liu to star in a crime drama pilot from Widow’s Bay Emmy winner Hiro Murai and famed Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai that shoots in Bangkok later this month.

Developed from an original story by Wong, the pilot revolves around a petty criminal who inherits a share in a mysterious and powerful corporation. She then vaults into a world of unimaginable wealth but also constant danger from a ruthless elite who sees her as the ultimate threat. It comes from Searchlight Television.

Murai will direct from a script by Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown) and Julia Cho (Turning Red, Elio). Yu, Cho and Murai exec produce alongside Carver Karaszewski, Claudia Shin, Kate Dean, Paul Schwartzman and Wong.

Liu has recently scored roles in numerous projects from top directors, including Nicolas Winding Ref (Her Private Hell), Daniel Roher (Tuner), and John Carney (Power Ballad). She broke out in Emma Seligman’s Bottoms, opposite Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri. Upcoming, she has Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut, which releases December 11 after premiering at Telluride; Jenny Suen’s Peaches, opposite Sophie Thatcher, for Coco Francini and Cate Blanchett’s Dirty Films; and Arkasha Stevenson’s untitled bachelor party horror film for A24. She is repped by CAA, Anonymous Content, Brillstein Partners, and Schreck Rose Dapello.

Three weeks ago, Murai made history by becoming the first Asian director to win the Comedy Directing Emmy for his work on Widow’s Bay, the hit horror comedy series for Apple, which he also exec produces. The Emmy was his third; the show itself scored 14, the most ever won by a comedy series in one year. A longtime fixture at FX, he’s more recently been directing and executive producing their drama miniseries The Marriage Plot from Will Arbery, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. He is repped by UTA, Untitled, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.

Wong Kar Wai is the auteur behind such iconic films as Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love. His most recent major projects are the Chinese drama series Blossoms Shanghai and the Oscar-nominated 2013 film The Grandmaster. He’s repped by CAA, Film Agents, Gang Tyre Ramer, and Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum.

Yu is repped by UTA, Theresa Kang of Blue Marble Management, and Robby Koch and Ken Richman of Hansen Jacobson; Cho by WME and Robby Koch at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller.

Jessica Chastain is back in Scream Queen territory, playing dual roles in the much buzzed-about horror Other Mommy.

The film, based on Josh Malerman‘s 2024 novel Incidents Around the House, follows a family whose house is haunted by a sinister entity that looks and sounds identical to the mother, with both versions played by the star.

Chastain, whose resumé includes horror films It Chapter Two, Mama and Crimson Peak, has a deep love of the genre, recalling at the new movie’s Los Angeles premiere on Thursday that “when I was a kid going to the movies, it was very rare to see a female character that I looked up to. And then I realized that the horror genre had a lot of incredibly strong women that I could recognize as the women around me in my life. Usually the women defeat the monsters in the genre, they’re the heroes, and the other genres that I grew up with I didn’t see that.”

In the months leading up to its release, Other Mommy has gotten lots of attention online for its campy title and premise, as well as its major jump scares — which were first on display when the trailer debuted in theaters in front of The Odyssey, spooking plenty of moviegoers who were not prepared for the horror moment.

“I got really funny texts from my friends and family who went to go see The Odyssey, because I have a lot of friends who love to go to the cinema, so it was really funny,” Chastain noted of the trailer’s viral impact.

Director Rob Savage also weighed in on that unexpected tie-in, revealing, “The thing that was so insane about launching in front of The Odyssey was the movie was far from finished. My phone was blowing up and we were there in the color grade, in the mix, approving VFX shots, being like, ‘Are we going to make release?’ Working for 18 hours a day to get it done. So it was a nice shot in the arm but it was also like, ‘We better have a movie at the end of it.’”

And despite the attention it has brought, the original title of the film was actually not Other Mommy, but Incidents Around the House to line up with the book. Savage — while lamenting how the internet was “annoyed it wasn’t Other Mother” — explained of the change that Other Mommy was simply “a better title,” and “if we’re trying to create the next iconic horror villain, that’s gotta be the foot you lead with.”

The film has faced some harsh reviews but is still set for a big weekend at the box office, opening against Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Reckoning. Chastain starred in Sorkin’s 2017 film Molly’s Game and is also close friends with Social Reckoning star Jeremy Strong (who takes over from Jesse Eisenberg in the Mark Zuckerberg role), so is she feeling any competition as the two movies debut?

“The funny thing is actually Aaron wrote me an email, he’s the one who brought it to my attention. I don’t know if you know this, he’s a bit of a wordsmith, and he sent me a very fun email about it, that we were going head to head. But no competition,” she teased, though is open to a Barbenheimer-style collaboration. “Can we get Zuck in Other Mommy, doing press together?”

Other Mommy is now playing in theaters.