Ashley Cullins has followed every beat of Casey Wasserman’s move to sell his agency, and covered tax incentive showdowns globally and between U.S. states. Like & Subscribe’s Natalie Jarvey tracked Netflix’s podcast ambitions and deals and Spotify’s pivot to video.
Did you hear that? It’s the sound of phones ringing throughout Hollywood as studio execs hunt for the next Curry Barker or Kane Parsons. “It’s embarrassing,” says one top motion picture agent of the frenzy over the box office performances of Obsession and Backrooms as studio execs press for meetings with YouTube creators and reps with digital clients field scores of calls. “Everybody’s realized it’s a skill set to be able to identify these people,” the agent says. “Hollywood’s still run by 81-year-olds, and they’re not watching YouTube at all.”
But as the industry races to replicate the success of these young horror phenoms, there’s a real risk of missing the point. In this special crossover of Dealmakers and Like & Subscribe, we unpack why these two movies worked, the real takeaways for Hollywood and the big glaring lesson the industry is missing, and identify seven creators with real potential to be the next YouTube-to-theatrical winner.
“What these two films prove is that there’s a massive, underserved appetite for original stories, particularly among audiences under 35,” says Image Nation CEO Ben Ross. “Both films outperformed the latest Star Wars installment — with not even a percentage of that budget. That should be a genuine wake-up call.”
For today, we talked to Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear, Ross and Spooky Pictures co-founders Steven Schneider and Roy Lee, plus Verve’s Michael Bitar, UTA’s Jordan Lonner, and Range Media Partners’ Kai Gayoso and others to build a very 2026 playbook for finding emerging filmmakers — and turning their audiences into theatrical momentum.
We’ll loop you in on:
- Why Hollywood’s creator gold rush is already chasing the wrong lesson
- Seven creators with the audience, chops and industry heat to break through next
- The talent-pipeline problem making YouTube irresistible — and risky — for studios
- The early signals that Kane Parsons, Curry Barker and Markiplier could mobilize real audiences
- What digital creators need beyond a following to get reps, studios and financiers interested
- How YouTube, TikTok and other platforms train creators to hook audiences fast
- Why Markiplier’s “very creator approach” to Iron Lung offers a blueprint for Hollywood
- What really drives the “extraordinary multiples” behind viral horror breakouts
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