The fact that TheWrap hosted a whole creator-Hollywood summit last week tells you everything you need to know about how legacy media is starting to view this space.

The inaugural Creators x Hollywood Summit brought together creators, studio executives, brand partners, and entertainment leaders at Whalar's The Lighthouse in Venice Beach. The whole premise was simple but loaded: the lines between the creator world and traditional Hollywood aren't just blurring. They're basically gone.

I got to moderate the closing panel, "Creators as Storytellers," with three people I genuinely admire. Andrew Bachelor (King Bach), who's been building his brand since 2012 and has a slate of films including Violent Night 2, Roadhouse 2, and Paramount+'s comedy series Hate the Player. Josh Richards, entrepreneur and cultural architect behind CrossCheck Studios, 42 million followers strong, Forbes 30 Under 30, and fresh off a first-look deal with Prime Video. And Michelle Khare, creator and host of Challenge Accepted, who made history by successfully petitioning to join the Primetime Emmy ballot for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series.

Oh, and she recreated a Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible stunt with a foreign military aircraft. No big deal.

Each of them came to the creator space with a totally different origin story. For Bach, filmmaking was always the goal. Social media was just the vehicle. Josh built an audience before he even realized what it meant. For Michelle, YouTube became the place to make things that could rival studio-level content and reach people for free.

Michelle raised something that reframed the whole conversation around what success actually looks like. "There are plenty of pieces of content, movies, art, in general, that are seen by millions and millions of people, but they don't actually impact or leave the person changed." She's not building to views. She's building to impact. And at the forefront of her storytelling, she said, is not just structure or beats but how the viewer will experience their own story arc while watching.

Josh talked about how his sketch show, Read the Room, goes through a full writer's room process, six months of writing, location scouts, casting, the whole thing. One year start to finish for a season. But every sketch also lives as its own TikTok. He's building for both worlds simultaneously, and the reaction he's always chasing is "wait, what show is this from?"

Bach has a different approach entirely. He has so much archived content that he can repurpose videos from a year ago and keep posting consistently while he's deep in production on a film. Self-syndication at its best.

On AI, all three were measured. Bach said it's not where it needs to be for scripted content yet. He uses it for budget breakdowns. Josh echoed that. A tool, not the whole toolbox. Michelle pointed to Survivor as her north star. That show has been on for 26 years, and no technology has ever disrupted its core because at its core it is just humans, raw and unscripted, trying to survive. That nucleus doesn't change.

The summit itself felt like proof of everything we've been saying in this space. Creators are not a side bet for studios anymore. They're the main conversation. Amazon, Paramount, and Prime Video are all in the room. The coaching still happens, as Josh put it, but the trust is building.

And if you're following me on social media in real time, I’m currently in in Lisbon, Portugal for the first StreamTV Show Europe and moderating a Leaders' Roundtable called: "The Creator Crossover: Who Owns the Next Gen of TV?" alongside Scott Brown (CEO, Second Rodeo), Tim Shey (Board Chair, Electrify Video Partners), Mel Tsiaprazis (Founder & CEO, GYST), and Ben Odell (CEO & Co-founder, 3Pas Studios).

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