Sony Pictures is making the most explicit studio bet yet on digital-native filmmaking talent. The company has hired Fede Goldenberg, YouTube’s head of film and TV partnerships, to run Screen Gems, the label behind genre franchises such as Resident Evil and Underworld.
Goldenberg will report to Sanford Panitch, president of Sony Pictures’ motion picture group. Ashley Brucks, who has run Screen Gems as president since 2023, moves to a producing role; details of that deal were not disclosed. Goldenberg has more than 20 years across entertainment, technology and digital media, including 15 at YouTube. Before that he held posts at Globosat, Terra Networks Brasil and FremantleMedia Latin America.
A label rebuilt around creators
Screen Gems will expand beyond its traditional genre and comedy slate to develop theatrical projects from what Sony calls “digital-native storytellers” – filmmakers who built followings online before moving into features. The studio named Curry Barker and Kane Parsons as examples; their films Obsession and Backrooms were among the year’s breakout digital-to-theatrical hits.
Panitch framed it as a pipeline play. “Some of the most exciting new filmmakers and ideas are emerging from creators outside of traditional Hollywood development pipelines,” he said in a statement. He added that Screen Gems has long been a home for distinctive genre storytelling and Sony sees potential in expanding that vision to digital-native creators with theatrical ambitions.
Goldenberg called the move “the right move at the right moment.” In a profile earlier this year he described Barker, Parsons and Markiplier as “the New Hollywood”; that framing is now corporate strategy at Sony.
The audience math
The commercial logic is built-in demand. A creator who arrives with millions of followers has already done the costly early work of earning trust and building an original world. For a studio, that can lower the risk of introducing a project cold.
Goldenberg’s credentials map directly to that problem:
- Head of TV and film content partnerships at YouTube since 2017, working with studios to scale their global reach.
- Guided creator-to-film breakouts for Curry Barker, Kane Parsons and Markiplier.
- Drove Markiplier’s Iron Lung release on YouTube and the platform’s Oscars rights deal with AMPAS.
Brucks’ producing transition is also notable. A former Paramount executive, she brought genre experience from Paranormal Activity, A Quiet Place and Scream. Under her Screen Gems tenure the label released Tarot and Insidious: Out of the Further.
Sony says this is the first time a studio division has reoriented itself around this talent pool. The test is whether Screen Gems can turn short-form storytelling instincts into repeatable theatrical box office, rather than one or two breakout hits.
For entertainment marketers, the shift matters because it changes how a film is sold. A Screen Gems release built on creator IP can start with a ready community and a language fans already use, rather than advertising a title from zero. The risk is that online intensity does not always translate to wide theatrical turnout, and the label will need to prove it can market creator-led projects beyond the creator’s core following.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
