“We’ll explore complexity and challenging character journeys, but it’s never going to be nihilistic.” says Levy, photographed June 23 in his office on the 21st Century Fox lot in Los Angeles.

THE STORY BEHIND SHAWN LEVY’S prolific 21 Laps Entertainment begins with a 5-year-old. Years ago, one of the Canadian director-producer’s four daughters was in a school jog-a-thon, and Levy expected her to run fewer than 10 laps. But she kept going all the way to 21. “I was on that sideline weeping with pride,” says Levy, “but also [because of] something else: surprise that my idea of who my kid was was not the full picture.”

So when Levy, 47, founded his film and television banner in 2005, he picked the name to challenge perceptions of who he was. At that point, he was known as the director of the now $1.4 billion Night at the Museum franchise. In the decade since, he has helmed more family fare like 2010’s Date Night, 2011’s Real Steel and 2013’s The Internship, but he also has made the smaller dramedy This Is Where I Leave You and, as a producer, he’s building an eclectic slate: His eight-episode 1980s horror series Stranger Things, starring Winona Ryder, debuted July 15 on Netflix; Denis Villeneuve’s next film, Arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, lands in awards season Nov. 11 via Paramount; the comedy Why Him? with Bryan Cranston and James Franco follows Dec. 25; Anna Kendrick’s wedding dramedy Table 19 opens Jan. 20; and New Line’s R-rated comedy Fist Fight, with Ice Cube, opens Feb. 17. Plus, 21 Laps and its staff of eight have a ton of projects in development, including a Starman reboot with Sony, Damien Chazelle’s The Undergraduate