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As shoots dry up for features and episodic TV in Los Angeles, there have been a few big-money bets placed by Hollywood veterans that soapy, short “vertical” stories are the next big thing — even if some see the format as a fad.
By Katie Kilkenny
Labor & Media Reporter
Microdramas might be produced on micro budgets, but some veteran Hollywood executives are betting that in the long run they will pay big dividends.
These series, also called “verticals” because they are filmed in portrait orientation and are intended to be viewed on cellphones, first took off in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. But in the past few years, upstart platforms like ReelShort and DramaBox have begun building an American following for these typically low-budget, soapy series in a way that Quibi never did. And while most major players have lingered on the sidelines of the growing format, content to let others put out such series as Captured and Bound by My CEO and Rules of Protection: The Bodyguard I Hate, that’s changing.
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Just in the past month, Fox Entertainment announced an equity stake investment in the Ukrainian verticals company Holywater, owner of the My Drama app, committing to making more than 200 shows for the platform in two years. On Oct. 23, former Miramax CEO Bill Block revealed a new venture, GammaTime, a microdrama app that has raised $14 million from such investors as Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
And in August, former WME and ABC Entertainment head Lloyd Braun, ex-Showtime president Jana Winograde, and former NBCUniversal Television and Streaming entertainment chairwoman Susan Rovner unveiled MicroCo, a startup that also aims to bring Hollywood know-how to the burgeoning format.
These execs believe they can bring some studio savvy to improve the quality of verticals, which traditionally feature clunky scripts and inexperienced actors. They’re eager to invest in genres beyond romance, like true crime, thrillers, horror, anime and comedy (honoring and expanding beyond the format’s primarily female audience). All are interested, too, in bringing influencers on board as actors or creatives to broaden their appeal.
“What you’ll see from us is a very different approach to how we think about the business as not just a cash grab, but a long-term core piece of the media pie for billions of consumers,” says Erick Opeka, the chief strategy officer and president of Cineverse, which has a 50 percent stake in MicroCo.
Of course, Hollywood wouldn’t be experimenting if it wasn’t seeing the dollar signs. Under the current “freemium” model of many verticals platforms, viewers can watch the first few “episodes” (often one- to three-minute segments) of a vertical for free and then can pay or watch ads to see the rest. Budgets for these projects are minuscule (generally, $100,000 to $300,000 per series), and platforms release a lot of them, experimenting to see what resonates with viewers.
According to Owl & Co, verticals are set to make more than $3 billion outside China this year. A separate analysis from SensorTower found that the U.S. is the market that generates the most revenue for verticals apps, reaching nearly $350 million in the first quarter of 2025.
The ambition for Hollywood players, essentially, is to build the Netflix for vertical video and the race is on to see who will get there first. But many open questions remain, like whether established stars and filmmaking talent will be eager to jump in.
MicroCo, which has set its sights on releasing its app in the first half of 2026, plans on keeping costs low in part by retaining the microdrama tradition of working with largely unknown actors. Its projects will be budgeted at about $100,000 to $200,000 each. “We plan to go with the old adage that TV creates stars, microdramas create stars. Did I mention our budgets?” jokes CEO Winograde.
Meanwhile, GammaTime and Holywater are planning to bring more of a traditional Hollywood approach by courting film and TV regulars for their products, a move that’s bound to increase the bottom line. GammaTime, whose app launched Oct. 23, has already released two series written by CSI: Crime Scene Investigation creator Anthony Zuiker, with more on the way. “We’re excited to work with the talent here and be a shot in the arm to this community that has not had an easy go for a number of years,” says GammaTime chief content officer Alex Montalvo.
Quibi — where Montalvo once worked — was able to engage such stars as Demi Lovato, Chrissy Teigen and Liam Hemsworth with lavish spending after it launched in 2018. “People on Quibi have $100,000 a minute to make content,” Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg once told Vulture. Compare that with Holywater, which says its budgets hover around $150,000 for an entire series, often around 60 to 90 episodes. Holywater wants to keep its budgets at a market average but anticipates having to shell out for higher-budget series, co-founder and co-CEO Anatolii Kasianov notes. Montalvo wouldn’t disclose GammaTime’s budgets but said “we are more competitive than what’s been established.”
Will these Hollywood efforts be able to retain viewers and build legitimate brand awareness? Microdrama apps typically market their series on such social media platforms as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, offering viewers an excerpt of a story to get them hooked and drive them to streaming apps. But there’s not a lot of brand loyalty in the same way that true-crime viewers might really love Netflix or book-to-TV adaptation enthusiasts might prefer Hulu, and viewers hop between platforms.
The players behind these Hollywood microdrama initiatives are betting that an improvement in quality can resolve that issue and make verticals less dependent on constant social media marketing. “It’s a really different level of content experience we bring to the table that’s broader and deeper and more systemic. We’ve built and run the systems that create hits, not just produced individual titles,” says MicroCo’s Winograde, name-dropping that the company’s contributors have helped bring Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and Yellowjackets to life between them. “And in doing that we have a real 360 perspective of not just how to make a good show, but how to make something more enduring.”
And what if the microdrama phenomenon is all just a fad and won’t engage viewers long-term the same way that streaming television has? To a certain extent, Hollywood has to explore the way the wind is blowing. An October report from Bernstein argued that even as SVOD platforms’ subscriber numbers grow, their share of engagement is declining and they should be looking to the exploding format of verticals to learn how to survive in a world where attention is increasingly fragmented.
Still, there’s always the prospect that all of this is just another Quibi, which attracted $1.75 billion in investment before it folded in late 2020, just months after it launched to great fanfare.
Zuiker, the CSI creator who is producing verticals for GammaTime, doesn’t think it is. “Number one, I don’t think the consumptive nature of shortform content tangibly in your pocket is a fad,” he says, adding, “The question will become, is the consumer going to buy into these stories in this time as American consumption? The jury’s out on that one.”
While the American viewing public has yet to definitively weigh in, Zuiker says he’s having a great time dabbling in the space. It’s an interesting writing challenge, he says, to keep viewers swiping every few minutes to see what happens next, especially when he only has three actors and one and a half locations. He appreciates that GammaTime is quick to greenlight, produce and release its series (often in six to eight weeks), in contrast to the increasingly tortuous process that TV writers and producers experience with studios and streamers, where development can take years.
That’s why he thinks Hollywood creatives will embrace verticals, even if there isn’t a lot of remuneration at present. “I think why people would do it is because they want to see their movies get made,” says Zuiker. “Every time I call Bill Block and say, ‘I’ve got an idea,’ the answer is ‘Yes.’ That’s the best part about it.”
This story appeared in the Nov. 5 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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