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YouTube stars move to the big screen

Why are production companies betting on YouTube stars to cross over to film?

Roman Atwood is one of the stars of "Natural Born Pranksters."
Roman Atwood is one of the stars of "Natural Born Pranksters."
Craig Barritt / GettyImages

The movie “Natural Born Pranksters” is out this week. It follows three YouTube stars, Roman Atwood, Dennis Roady, and Vitaly Sdorovetskiy, as they roam around Hollywood playing pranks.

More than ever, YouTube stars are making the leap from the small screen to the big screen. For example, Rachel Bloom started off on YouTube and now her television show “Crazy Ex Girlfriend” is a big success for the CW network. This week, Adriene Hill explains why more and more of these stars are crossing over to film and TV and what it takes to be successful in making the move.

Last July, Adriene interviewed YouTube (and now Hulu) star Freddie Wong about what it was like to make the switch from YouTube to a bigger platform. He told Adriene,

At the end of the day we still make the things that we make. We found that the best strategy in this very fluid marketplace is not to be tied in to any given platform, but to make good content, and good content will be able to live almost anywhere.

Listen to the player above to find out more about these rising YouTube stars.

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