In June 2019, Penna began shooting on the sci-fi movie Stowaway starring Anna Kendrick and Toni Collette.

This success led Netflix to also acquire the US rights to Penna's earlier film Arctic, which similarly achieved #1 ranking in the country.

[9] In August 2022, Penna signed on to direct the sci-fi thriller Trespasser, produced by Jason Fuchs and Brad Fuller.

The film, based on a Black List screenplay follows a father and daughter living in isolation who encounter a mysterious otherworldly creature.

[10] In December 2022, Penna was tapped to produce Anna Kendrick's directorial debut Woman of the Hour.

[11] The thriller, based on the true story of Cheryl Bradshaw, a bachelorette on the 1970s TV matchmaking show The Dating Game whose chosen bachelor turned out to be serial killer Rodney Alcala, was acquired by multiple international distributors at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In 2009, Penna was again seen on the front page of YouTube with his video Guitar: Impossible, which has been covered by De Wereld Draait Door, the highest-rated primetime show in the Netherlands.

[27][28] In 2012, Penna co-wrote and directed an original interactive thriller series titled Meridian starring Orlando Jones and Rick Overton in conjunction with Fourth Wall Studios.

[31] In May 2023, Penna was part of a team that authored a paper on text-to-image generation which introduced PickScore, a scoring function showing superior performance in predicting human preferences.