North Road, Wiip alum Josh Stern named president at Duffer Bros’ Upside Down

Josh Stern, a former exec at Peter Chernin’s North Road Company, has been named president at the Duffer Brothers’ production company Upside Down Pictures.

Josh Stern

The appointment comes around five months after the LA-based company, which is led by Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, moved under a four-year overall deal with Paramount Skydance, leaving their longtime home at Netflix.

Under the pact, the Duffer brothers will create, write, direct and produce projects for Paramount Pictures, Paramount Television Studios and Paramount direct-to-consumer via Upside Down Pictures.

Stern joins the company four months after the departure of former president Hilary Leavitt, who had led the company since its inception in 2022.

In addition to Stranger Things, which ended a five-season run at the end of 2025, Upside Down Pictures also produced The Boroughs, which was cancelled by Netflix after one season earlier this year. Other projects produced by Upside Down Pictures for Netflix include Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, a limited series that premiered in March, and animated Stranger Things spin-off Tales from ’85, which returns for its second season on September 17.

Stern previously served as executive VP of television at North Road Company, which was acquired by Mediawan earlier this year.

Before that, Stern was the creative lead at Wiip, where he worked on projects including Dickinson (Apple TV+) and Dummy (Quibi/Roku). Prior to that, he oversaw development at Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa, working on shows such as Kindred (FX) and Oscar-winning feature drama The Whale starring Brendan Fraser.

The appointment was first reported by Deadline.