Sony Hands Screen Gems, Home of ‘Resident Evil,’ to a YouTube Executive

Fede Goldenberg spent 15 years at YouTube; Ashley Brucks, who ran the genre label since 2023, moves to a producing deal.

The studio behind “Resident Evil” and “Underworld” now answers to a man who spent the last 15 years at YouTube.

Sony Pictures hired Fede Goldenberg, YouTube’s head of film and TV partnerships, to run its Screen Gems genre label, The Hollywood Reporter reported in an exclusive Friday. Ashley Brucks, the label’s president since 2023, is moving to a producing deal with the studio. Online creators just got their own front door at a major studio, and everyone who pitched Screen Gems the old way just got company in the lobby.

Sony said the label will widen its genre slate to take in theatrical projects from “digital-native storytellers,” meaning filmmakers who built followings online, like Curry Barker and Kane Parsons. Goldenberg will report to Sanford Panitch, president of Sony’s motion picture group. THR called it the first time a studio division has turned itself toward that talent pool.

The money explains the hurry. Barker’s “Obsession,” a Focus Features release, grossed $522 million on a budget under $1 million, TheWrap reported. Screen Gems’ “Insidious: Out of the Further” made $170 million this year on an $18 million budget, which TheWrap counts as the label’s biggest hit since the previous “Insidious” movie.

“Some of the most exciting new filmmakers and ideas are emerging from creators outside of traditional Hollywood development pipelines,” Panitch said in a statement to THR. Goldenberg, who’s from Brazil, said in Sony’s announcement that he knows “the next generation of great filmmakers is already building audiences on the platform.”

The first person to lose a seat is the one who had the top chair. Before Sony, Brucks was a Paramount executive who brought in the original “Paranormal Activity” and oversaw the “A Quiet Place” and “Scream” franchises, according to THR. Panitch said she’ll produce several films and bring her genre taste to all of Sony’s labels, though THR said the scope of her deal isn’t clear.

The pitch room is next. On paper, nobody’s shut out: Sony’s word is “expand,” and the label keeps its traditional genre work. But TheWrap notes that creators often write, direct, produce and star in their own projects, and tend to guard their IP hard. So a screenwriter’s spec or a producer’s package may now be up against a YouTuber who walks in as the script, the director and the audience all at once.

Sony is betting creators still need what a studio sells. Mark Fischbach, the YouTuber known as Markiplier, paid for and released “Iron Lung” himself, and it grossed $50 million, TheWrap reported. THR said Goldenberg helped put the film on YouTube afterward. A Sony insider told TheWrap that self-released creator films often lack worldwide release and serious marketing plans, and that’s the gap Screen Gems wants to fill.

Not every creator is cheering the rush. Alanah Pearce, who’s making the theatrical film “Godmother” with YouTuber Jacksepticeye, told TheWrap earlier that she expects Hollywood to fund a wave of creator-led features in the next couple of years. She was glad to be getting out ahead of it, she said, partly “because I fear quality will drop.”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter, retrieved October 10, 2026. Other sources: tubefilter.com, TheWrap.