Good morning. Film director Adrian Chiarella just released a dropbox with scenes from his upcoming film Leviticus, encouraging fans to make edits with the footage—and they’ve already made hundreds of remixes.

With echoes of edit trends like Halsey’s “Blue” and Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” this is the kind of Tumblr-pilled guerilla marketing we can get behind.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

In the wake of creator films Obsession and Backrooms—the latter of which just became A24’s first film to cross $100M at the box office—it seems all of Hollywood is in a mad dash to find the next Curry Barker or Kane Parsons. 

This week, we’ve heard firsthand rumblings from sources at major agencies, streamers, and studios that the time to make creator projects is now.

We called up Drew Shenfield, a talent manager at Mosaic that reps both creators and traditional talent, to hear why →

“I think Hollywood is a reactive place, and a lot of the time they don't get the right message from stuff,” Shenfield told us. 

What studios need to do differently: For Shenfield, the most important note for Hollywood isn’t just greenlighting more creator horror movies, but working with creators across all genres that have direct lines with a younger audience. After all, over half of all Obsession viewers were under 25. 

“It's very hard for somebody who's been in the business for 40 years to get a young cast to feel authentic,” Shenfield said. ”What [Backrooms and Obsession] did so well was resonate with an audience that is starving for it.” 

Why is this moment happening now? Shenfield theorizes that constricting opportunities in traditional film and television have led to an abundance of creators, which has given way to lots of original IP across platforms.

“Maybe back in the day, those [creators] would be writing on Key and Peele or staffed in a room, but because that opportunity is so tough, now they have to go self-start,” Shenfield said.

How we see it: As Syd told Warner Bailey on AvA LIVE earlier this week, the core of this movement isn’t about the format—it’s about the creator. Original stories from creators with strong visions will win over repetitive formats in the long run.

"Backrooms feels like something that everybody on the internet had a hand in creating. So when that comes out in theaters, [viewers say] 'I want a thing that I had a hand in,'" Samir said yesterday on TBPN.

Meta has begun testing a “Series” feature allowing creators to group their shows into bingeable seasons, according to TechCrunch.

What this means for creators:

Meta is competing with microdramas at a different price point. Currently, microdrama platforms like MyDrama keep full series behind a paywall. With Meta’s new feature, Instagram and Facebook creators can either make full series accessible for free or utilize the platform’s membership program.

More platforms are treating their UI like a streaming service. “We want to find ways that mimic behavior that users are accustomed to seeing for a show,” Tim Katz, YouTube’s VP of Partnerships, Americas said at Press Publish LA. He pointed to an expansion of YouTube’s packaging for the TV app, where channels can arrange shows into seasons and episodes. As YouTube caters to the influx of high-value shows, other platforms are following suit.

Multiple short-form series can live on the same Instagram or Facebook page. As it stands, short-form studios like Gymnasium and Fallen Media have individual accounts for each of the shows in their networks. The series feature, once rolled out, could deem the individual accounts unnecessary—centralizing the company’s work in one spot.

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YouTube Premium is one of creators’ most-used subscription services, and in the past week, the platform has announced a handful of updates. Here’s how it’s changing →

The changes come after YouTube Premium is riding its strongest non-trial subscriber growth since its launch in 2019. Between Premium and Alphabet’s storage service, Google One, Alphabet has 340 million paid subscribers.

Looking ahead: As other platforms look to poach YouTube’s podcast talent for their subscription services (see: Netflix’s deals with Jay Shetty and The Breakfast Club), we’ve been chatting around the office about YouTube Premium’s strongest value add. 

When Premium first launched seven years ago, it allowed users access to its slate of original shows. Now, YouTube doesn’t make original programming, it costs $6 more, and it primarily offers users ad-free videos and music. YouTube creators are increasingly making shows that look and feel like something you'd find on Netflix. Could that content eventually become a Premium perk, bundled in for subscribers?

We’re still buzzing from last week’s Hollywood Creator Summit and all the thoughtful content from our community. Here’s what we look forward to reading and watching this weekend.