LOS ANGELES — Danny Gabai was used to being ignored. For years, he ran what may have been Vice Media’s most uncool business — the production of feature films, made to be shown in theaters.

Whatever, dude. We do digital stuff here.

“We were seen as a redheaded stepchild,” Mr. Gabai said, “if our existence was acknowledged at all.”

But that was the old Vice, the one that functioned less as a company and more as an out-of-control frat party. The new Vice, which started to take shape last year, with the arrival of a new chief executive, Nancy Dubuc, has decided to turn Mr. Gabai’s operation into an anchor division, one she hopes can help Vice overcome difficulties elsewhere in its empire.