Hollywood is falling in love with micro dramas, with Fox and other industry players moving to capitalize on the made-for-mobile format.
The flicks, sometimes called “verticals” or “mini dramas,” originated in Asia and bear little resemblance to prestige Hollywood fare. Designed to be watched in one- to two-minute episodes on mobile apps like ReelShort and DramaBox, they’re more like gaming apps, with cliffhangers meant to hook viewers and get them to pay to keep watching. They’re low-budget and usually quite cheesy, with titles like “Fake Married to My Billionaire CEO” and “Divorced at the Wedding Day.”
The audience and money in micro dramas have become impossible for traditional Hollywood to ignore. Already, players from Disney to Fox have jumped on board and are looking for ways in, often by saying they’ll put a more elevated spin on them.
Paramount Skydance and ReelShort are exploring ways to co-create. Paramount Pictures worked with ReelShort to promote “Regretting You” in the ReelShort app ahead of its October 24 release. Users of the app could see the movie’s trailer and read more about the film.
Lionsgate has also explored the format, a person familiar with the studio’s plans said. So has Hallmark, someone familiar with the company’s thinking said.
Tech and ad companies are getting into the space as well. Meta’s Instagram is testing the format in India with a series. TikTok, already widely used as a marketing channel for the format, has pitched companies on uploading entire films to the app. The ad-holding company Dentsu invested in Japan’s Emole, the company behind a micro drama app called Bump, through its venture capital arm, Dentsu Ventures.
Hollywood has been losing ground to YouTube and social media apps. Mobile users spend more time per day on DramaBox than on Comcast’s Peacock and Warner Bros. Discovery’s HBO Max, Bernstein analysts wrote in a recent report. Micro drama apps are on track to generate $3 billion in revenue this year globally, excluding China, nearly triple their haul last year, streaming consulting firm Owl & Co. estimated. Verticals may not be the answer to Hollywood’s woes, but they could help.
Here are five companies that are at the forefront of investing in micro dramas and how:
Bill Block, the former CEO of Miramax, raised $14 million from Alexis Ohanian, Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and others to launch GammaTime, an app he’s calling the “Netflix of premium short-form storytelling.” The app launched with more than 20 vertical originals spanning thrillers, romance, and true crime, and including originals written by “CSI” creator Anthony E. Zuiker.Lloyd Braun and other media veterans launched MicroCo this summer with undisclosed backing from tech-driven entertainment company Cineverse. MicroCo said it planned to elevate the format by using both union and non-union labor, as well as AI tools to keep production costs down and improve content recommendations. “If the thesis is, this is a significant portion of viewing time, you can’t ignore it,” Erick Opeka, Cineverse’s president and chief strategy officer, told Business Insider of the format. “You’ll need it to be a funnel to your high-revenue streaming services.”Disney has invested in the space, giving prominent micro drama app DramaBox a spot in its selective accelerator program whose membership has included voice cloning startup ElevenLabs and Epic Games.Fox Entertainment invested in Holywater, a Ukrainian company behind the micro drama app My Drama. Fox sees the format’s potential to test out ideas for new shows as well as extend existing ones. It’s already producing scripted vertical series that’ll live on My Drama, with the potential of distributing them other places. It’s also talking to its established talent and exploring adapting the micro drama format for true crime and animation. Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade said he saw the investment as a way to go more direct-to-consumer and improve on the format using Fox’s in-house talent and marketing. “Micro dramas just offer another way to reach audiences where they are,” he said.TelevisaUnivision, the Spanish-language media company, is leaning hard into telenovela-style vertical dramas for distribution on ViX, its streaming platform. It rolled out the first six originals on July 21, including “Te Escribí Antes de Conocerte” (“I Wrote to You Before I Knew You”) and “El regreso de la Heredera Fugitiva” (“The Return of the Fugitive Heiress”), and is on pace to deliver 40 micro dramas by the end of the year, with 100 set for 2026. The plan is to expand into other genres, such as documentaries and comedy.
Read more about the rising micro drama trend: Micro Dramas on your phone challenge Peacock, HBO, and other Hollywood streamers
