Lionsgate and RocketJump Studios have formed a multi-year partnership for the creation of film, television and digital content, the two companies announced today.

RocketJump has surged to online stardom with its effects-laden short films and web series Video Game High School, now on its third season.

Since its founding four years ago by Freddie Wong (pictured in VGHS), Matt Arnold and Dez Dolly, the company has launched a range of properties on YouTube and RocketJump.com that have attracted over 6.8 million subscribers and garnered nearly a billion views across all platforms.

The deal enables Lionsgate to access RocketJump’s upcoming slate of digital content and in-house talent while allowing RocketJump to utilize Lionsgate’s content leadership and global marketing talent, bringing more long-form projects to its audience while continuing to expand its roster of weekly shorts, podcasts and tutorials.

The Lionsgate deal won’t affect RocketJump’s relationship with its production partner on VGHS, Collective Digital Studio, according to Collective partner Reza Izad.

“We are still responsible for the ad sales and sponsorship of [RocketJump’s] content,” Izad says.

Lionsgate’s content portfolio includes The Hunger Games, Twilight and Divergent franchises and it has a stake in Defy Media and the BeFit branded fitness channel on YouTube. Its original streaming content includes Netflix’s Orange is the New Black and the new Hulu comedy Deadbeat.

“This partnership unites two entrepreneurial companies with similar cultures and a shared commitment to build new models for creating and delivering content to the next generation of audiences,” said Lionsgate chief executive officer Jon Feltheimer, in a statement.

At the Digital Entertainment World conference in February, Collective’s chief revenue officer Alex Angeledes  revealed the two companies were developing two new shows together, titled Dimension 404 and DevSide. He described Dimension 404 as “American Horror Story-meets-Twilight Zone” and DevSide as “a workplace sitcom” about a family of developers.

From Stream