Nate Bargatze is set on conquering the world.

The comedian, who was the highest-grossing stand-up comic for the past two years (enough to outrank Jerry Seinfeld, Trevor Noah and Adam Sandler), has released five successful specials, won a Grammy, hosts a podcast (“The Nateland Podcast”) and released a book (“Big Dumb Eyes”) that became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. He also made a pair of memorable appearances on “Saturday Night Live,” starring as George Washington and extolling the virtues of a visit to the lake beach, which preceded a CBS primetime Christmas special, written with many of his “SNL” confederates. He also hosted the Emmys, to a decidedly mixed response.

Bargatze’s comedy – clean, apolitical and warm as mama’s apple pie – is incredibly pliable. His humor is relatable, with jokes about wanting a second dog and hiding his fast-food addiction from his concerned wife, and easy to digest in hourlong comedy specials or clips that are shared, endlessly, on various social media platforms. Bargatze is a phenomenon because he’s not just smart and hilarious, but because he feels like someone you might know – a funny uncle or maybe the guy in your office who makes everybody laugh.

The next stage in his attempt at world domination arrives this Friday, serving as both an extension of his well-honed brand and a bold leap into a new format.

“The Breadwinner,” opening this weekend from TriStar Pictures, is a feature film that Bargatze co-wrote, produced and stars in. In “The Breadwinner,” Bargatze plays Nate Wilcox, a well-meaning Toyota salesman whose life is turned upside down when his wife (Mandy Moore) sells an invention on “Shark Tank.” When she’s whisked overseas to oversee production of the product, movie-Nate is forced to raise his three daughters, deal with an unruly roofer (Will Forte) and attempt to keep everything together in time for his wife to come home.

“It feels like the right time and space where I think a movie like this is not being made – something that’s a live-action family movie that everybody can come out to,” Bargatze told TheWrap of his feature film debut.

He approached the movie like he approaches his standup routine.

“I don’t write it for the kids but kids enjoy the standup. They’re not going to get everything but they like a lot of it. If I talk about a donkey jumping off a high dive, they’re big fans of that,” said Bargatze. “But when I talk about being married or my parents …”

Still, he pushes back against the idea that a movie was the coordinated next step of his grand design.

“It’s not like I really chose when to do it, it’s just that doors open and you let them open and you go, All right, well, I’ll go down this path. And this was a very, I think, fitting first movie for me to get into,” Bargatze said. “If you know me from stand-up, it’s not so far off from that. It’s something easy for me to sell to you, and I think everybody will enjoy it.”

With “The Breadwinner,” the Nashville native is clearly channeling a brand of comedy that you don’t see all that often, with broad, slapstick humor and a surprising amount of heart, reminiscent of things like “Funny Farm” or “The Money Pit.” Bargatze also cites John Hughes as a huge inspiration, from things like “Home Alone” and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.” He wasn’t consciously thinking of “Mr. Mom,” which Hughes wrote and shares a similar premise about a husband reversing parental roles with his wife, but was reminded of it after they had finished the movie.

“There’s been movies like that for a long time, because that doesn’t change, and that doesn’t end. There’s a new age group that’s coming in, and so yes, we grew up watching those movies, and then there’s people that are 25, 30 that have kids and they’re going through a lot of the same things,” Bargatze said. “My daughter, she’s not seen any of that stuff, she does not have that as much, and she’s 13, and I think kids coming up now, it’s just not there.”

With “The Breadwinner,” Bargatze wanted to create ”a space there for them to go to, and that they can go watch that and everybody can go watch it together.” “I see it when I go on tour and you have an entire family come to a show and it’s weirdly a demographic that’s not being targeted, which the demographic is everybody. That’s what the idea was with this movie.”

In some ways, Bargatze is following in the it’s-for-everyone formula of 2026 breakout “Project Hail Mary,” which liberally mixed hard sci-fi with more digestible buddy movie dynamics and real empathy, to the tune of $677 million worldwide. Other hits this year have been siloed, segmented by specific fandoms (“Michael,” $780 million worldwide) or demographics, whether that’s largely female audiences (“The Devil Wears Prada 2,” $613 million) or little kids on sugar benders (“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $984 million).

Bargatze said that he really wants to create a cinematic experience for the family – so much so that he’s created what they’re calling a Nate-Rate – basically matinee pricing for the entire day, at a savings of up to 25%. (“80 for Brady” employed a similar strategy, and AMC and Cinemark are among the chains participating.)

“The Nate Rate is a special kind of lower ticket price because we want everyone to come out to this movie. This movie is for your grandparents, grandkids, aunts, uncles, friends, sister…anybody. Your dog. Cats I think will love this movie, specifically. Anybody that wants to come out,” Bargatze said in a video that he released after our interview.

What makes his theatrical push even more impressive is the success that Bargatze has had on streaming, with his stand-up specials all commanding huge numbers. “Streaming was talked about,” Bargatze admits.

But it didn’t go much further than that – and for good reason.

“I look at myself as a comedian. I’m in the ticket-selling business. My interaction with the fan base right now is they buy tickets to come see me perform and I want to keep that relationship, and I think if I veer off and go do a streaming movie, it breaks the chain of that relationship,” Bargatze said.

He understands that the movie will eventually wind up on streaming (Netflix is Sony’s licensing partner for streaming), but for now, he needs to take a stand.

“I believe that there are these people that want to go out of their house. It’s either going to work or it’s not going to work, but for me to really get a gauge if it’s going to work, I need to hold that ground and say no to the streaming opportunities, and just say, if you’re not going to theaters, then that’s just not the path that I’m on right now, and so I just want to stay in that same relationship that I have with the audience, to be like, you purchase a ticket and that’s what you come see.”

Bargatze was also adamant about playing a slightly different version of himself instead of – we’re just throwing this out now – a wacky zookeeper or a librarian in charge of magical books. Bargatze wrote the script with Dan Lagana, who had previously worked with the comedian on a sitcom pilot years ago that was also based off on Bargatze’s actual life.

“I kept it very much along the lines of where, if you knew me as stand-up, I believe this movie would be the movie you think I would make,” Bargatze said. During the closing credits of the film actual clips from his stand-up routine play, intermingled with outtakes and clips from the movie, which serves to further braid together his live output and the movie.

He says that he wants to do other types of movies and play other types of roles (“That’s the plan I see going forward”), but that he learned early on while auditioning that he was going to have to create projects that he was fit for.

“I want to hopefully walk people through a career of making movies,” he said. “As we go forward into making more comedies, we could get into some action, into some other stuff. It’s very much like, let it happen. I don’t want to chase something if it doesn’t [feel right].”

The success of his stand-up, Bargatze said, allowed him the time to build a production company while also building the relationship with the audience, so when he finally did step into movies, he was making something that he knew his audience would respond to. Fans become a focus group.

“I want to build trust and know what people are expecting,” Bargatze said.

He said that he looks at young performers who are “really pressured into getting a lot of followers on social media very early, and they don’t really get to develop and become maybe as big as they probably would have become, because there’s a ton of talent, and you see on social media, they just don’t get developed. They don’t get a chance to make mistakes and the weight gets thrown on them.”

Bargatze wants “The Breadwinner” to be successful not just for him, but to show studios that family comedies can work in the theater. The 47-year-old ultimately wants to create opportunities for the next generation of comics, adding, “I don’t want to do it too, too long.”

We wondered, though, considering so much of Bargatze’s empire is built around his persona as a lovable, goofy and very relatable everyman (there’s a large chapter in his book devoted to the fact that an accident he suffered between seventh and eighth grade made him dumber), if there was concern that the persona would collapse under his ever-expanding fame and success. There is a marked difference between how funny an up-and-coming comic is versus one that owns their own plane and has a large “household staff.”

“People will tell you, ‘Make sure you’re appreciating everything that is going on.’ I would tell you that no one could appreciate it more than me,” Bargatze said. In every city that he’s been to, he said that he’s played in the tiny comedy club, then the small theater, then the bigger theater and now their area. The week before we talked he was in Fargo and Sioux Falls.

But still – he’s worried.

“I’m so scared to become out of touch. It’s honestly probably my biggest fear, that I don’t want to lose that. Us living in Nashville and trying to somewhat be grounded, have our daughter, she’s very much been grounded, this success that I’m having right now has been these past couple years. These have been a skyrocket, but you know, she’s 13. I’m around my friends at home, you just try to make yourself stay grounded, and a big part of it too is try to make it not about myself,” Bargatze said.

“When I make these movies, I need to be doing it for a reason, if it’s for the audience or if it’s for the next wave of talented performers that are going to come up to give them a place to be able to do what they go do. Something I learned, not too long ago, probably within the past five years, is you really can’t make it about you, because if you make it about you … nothing’s going to be good enough. You need to make it about the audience and about moving forward, and seeing an end goal to be like, I don’t want to just be doing whatever. People have different passions, but for me, I can see a passion that I want to be able to eventually not be the front face of it, but to be able to give advice and be able to help and be there for the next wave that comes through.”

Not that Bargatze is going anywhere.

In fact, his empire is still growing. On his to-do list is Nateland, a really-for-real theme park outside of Nashville that will combine live entertainment, traditional theme park attractions and more. It is perhaps the most ambitious and certainly the most elaborate phase of Bargatze’s career – to bring everything he’s done to a centralized, permanent location that fans and tourists can visit whenever they feel like it. You know, if it’s not too much trouble.

“I believe we have a spot. We have not announced the spot yet, but we’re pretty positive we have a spot. We have renderings where all the studies have been done, probably investing is starting to roll out and getting that figured out,” Bargatze explained. “It’s the process… the vesting aspect of it is going to take a little bit of time to get that but once we get that, a lot of people in the state of Tennessee are very excited, and I’m very excited. It also helps me, as I create this movie world, and everything that I’ve created to like, you have a place to put it. Not that everything’s going to fit in this theme park, and not that I want every movie and everything that I make be in this theme park.”

Bargatze continued: “With this theme park I want to celebrate Nashville, celebrate the state of Tennessee, and country music, and celebrate the journeys that I’ve done. I lived in New York for a long time, I lived in LA. I have experience. All the touring that I’ve done, I want to pull from all over. I want the theme park to have that aspect to it. It’s very fun to be able to start in this movie world, and you make something, and you’re like, Oh, maybe that could be a ride, or Maybe that could be this. It’s got a place for it to go.”