Teenage YouTuber Wesley Wang makes history in major Hollywood film studio deal

19-year-old Wesley Wang has made history as the youngest person to be signed to direct a feature-length film by a major studio, his award-winning short film ‘nothing, except everything’ set to be adapted into a full-length movie.

19-year-old YouTuber and content creator Wesley Wang has made history as the youngest person to ever get signed by a major film studio to direct a feature-length project. The film in question serves as an adaptation of Wang’s own short film, ‘nothing, except everything’.

Wang made his short during his senior year of high school. After uploading to his YouTube channel in September 2024, ‘nothing, except everything’ went viral on the streaming platform, the project going on to win the Grand Jury Prize at Indianapolis’s Indy Shorts Film Festival.

According to an exclusive from Deadline, the rights to adapt Wang’s short film was a close battle, one that saw four major studios battle it out. However, TriStar recently closed the deal, with Wang set to adapt his short for the big screen as writer and director, with Darren Aronofsky‘s Protozoa Pictures set to produce.

The official synopsis for the short film reads as the following: “A graduating high schooler navigates a world of seemingly inevitable chaos by finding order in the number 7.”

The full short can be viewed on Wang’s YouTube account or down below.

While an achievement in itself, Wang’s new title as the youngest director to be signed by a major film studio is just one of many groundbreaking accomplishments for the budding Hollywood star. 

Wang is an 11-time national chess champion and currently studies at Harvard, one of the most prestigious schools in the world. Wang’s other short films include projects such as Faces, Eve, and Mute.

At the time of writing, there are no actors attached to the feature film adaptation or any indication of when the project will be released.