How Skibidi Toilet Became One of Hollywood's Most Valuable Franchises

“I’ve always been a risk-taker,” filmmaker Michael Bay, who is working on the project with Invisible Narratives as chief creative advisor, told the Post. “Audiences are hungry for new, fresh ideas. With Skibidi, it’s a new world that the younger generation is looking at, and I take that very seriously.”

Skibidi Toilet is the first narrative series told entirely in short-form video. It has already amassed over 65 billion views on YouTube in the last year, becoming one of the most-watched pieces of content on the platform. It tells the story of toilets with human heads engaged in a war against people who have CCTV cameras, speakers and televisions for heads, in the middle of a dark and dystopian landscape. They compete in an expanding industrial world, with the Skibidi Toilets acting on the orders of their leader, G-Man, to destroy humanity and turn more people into Skibidi Toilets.

If Skibidi Toilet continues its current growth trajectory, executives say it could offer a new business model for Hollywood, which is struggling to compete with social media platforms for attention and facing the threat of automation through new technologies like artificial intelligence. Unlike many others in Hollywood, some entertainment executives say they see hope in the internet.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been involved in anything that reflects the growth of this industry,” Adam Goodman, CEO and founder of Invisible Narratives and former chairman of Paramount Pictures, told The Post in an interview. Goodman has overseen films like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and shows like SpongeBob SquarePants. “I think YouTube is one of the best places to start new intellectual property. It’s as big a business financially as anything we’ve seen in traditional entertainment. It’s just a little bit different.”

Skibidi Toilet came onto Invisible Narratives’ radar after Bay became fascinated with Gerasimov’s YouTube channel. When Skibidi Toilet took off on the platform last year, Invisible Narratives struck a deal to grow the business through licensing and partnerships.

The Skibidi Toilet is incredibly popular, especially with Generation Alpha, children born after 2010. Skibidi Toilet-themed toys will soon be hitting shelves at all major retailers, thanks to a deal the company has struck with Bonkers Toys. The National Electrical Contractors Association has been commissioned to produce a range of Skibidi Toilet drones and RVs. And licensing deals to extend the brand to products such as bedding, clothing, Skibidi Toilet soft toys and more have been signed, according to the company.

“I’ve never seen a digital property that has generated so much interest,” said Will Hanisch, head of brand development at Invisible Narratives.

“We’ve assembled a team of executives and creatives who have worked on some of the biggest Hollywood franchises in the world,” Goodman said. “We’re all involved in [Skibidi Toilet] just as seriously and treating it with the same degree of reverence as any of the major multi-billion dollar franchises we've been fortunate enough to work with.

While Skibidi’s initial success grew out of an organic fandom on YouTube, Invisible Narratives has built a sprawling marketing engine around the franchise to consistently reach new audiences. The company has partnered with popular video games, including Minecraft, to integrate Skibidi Toilet skins and characters into the game. And some of the most popular games on Roblox, an online gaming platform, are Skibidi Toilet-themed, generating a collective revenue of tens of millions of dollars a year. “A lot of our audience discovered Skibidi because they came to us through YouTube,” Goodman said, “but a whole other massive audience discovered Skibidi through Roblox.”

At any given time, between 80,000 and 225,000 concurrent users are playing Skibidi toilet-themed games in Roblox, said Joseph Jurbala, a partner at Bloxology, a licensing agency that runs the Skibidi Toilet game business in partnership with Invisible Narratives. The two largest Skibidi Toilet games on Roblox average about 20 million monthly users.

Invisible Narratives also empowers dozens of YouTube channels to produce their own Skibidi Toilet content, created by their fans. Unlike traditional entertainment companies, which have strict control over their online intellectual property and typically crack down on unauthorized use, Invisible Narratives encourages fans to create their own Skibidi Toilet content to boost the brand.

“We made a decision that goes against everything we know as traditional entertainment executives,” Goodman said. “I worked at Paramount at a time when Viacom was in a lawsuit with YouTube. [over IP]We're doing the opposite and made the decision early on that these channels can really help increase the popularity of this product.

As the franchise's popularity has grown, a movie and TV show are also in the works.

Goodman said he and the Invisible Narratives team consider Gerasimov, also known as Boom, to be a filmmaking prodigy and hope to develop his talent. Michael Bay and Boom spend a lot of time together talking about process, collaboration, iteration, and have introduced Boom to some of the artists who have worked on some of the biggest franchises in the world, he said.

While some might be tempted to dismiss Skibidi Toilet as a viral meme or short-lived phenomenon, Goodman says he believes the series has the potential to become the next big entertainment franchise.

“My business partner is Michael Bay, and I used to run Paramount and DreamWorks,” Goodman said. “A few years ago, we bought the rights to the Transformers movie franchise, and everyone thought it was a stupid idea. They were like, ‘You can’t make a movie about an ’80s toy, what next? A LEGO movie?’” The LEGO movies have grossed more than $1 billion at the box office, while the Transformers movies have grossed about $5 billion, according to Box Office Mojo figures.

When my friends first see this, they look at me and say, 'Good luck, I hope it works out for you,'” Goodman said. “It's as real as any franchise we've ever been involved with.”

At a time when everything in Hollywood feels like a reboot or centers on decades-old intellectual property, Skibidi Toilet feels fresh, online culture experts said.

The film has spread across the country, in schools and on playgrounds. Kids show up at Skibidi Toilet wearing Skibidi Toilet T-shirts, said Ben De Almeida, a YouTuber with more than 7.5 million subscribers. Matthew Patrick, former host of the YouTube channel Game Theorists, which analyzes games and online culture, called Skibidi Toilet an epic action movie.

“It’s a series and a story, not just a meme or a funny video that people share,” explained Sophie Browning, a 21-year-old content creator from Minnesota.

Goodman said it's allowed young people to feel ownership of the franchise. They can create their own sense of nostalgia for it, he said. They're not inheriting it from their grandparents, or being told, “Oh, you're going to love Twister because I saw it in the '90s when I was in high school.” They've discovered [Skibidi Toilet]it's theirs.

Goodman said that at the end of the day, good entertainment is still good entertainment. It's still about storytelling, character development, jokes, action, drama and intrigue. It's just a different delivery mechanism.

There are so many opportunities for people in Hollywood to get into this space, he added.