Field report: we just spent way too long convincing a skeptical friend that 90-second cliffhangers count as real storytelling. They are now four episodes deep. We accept the apology in advance.
Vertical just got its first Black and Latino-led home
The fastest-growing format in global entertainment is mostly led by Chinese and Hollywood-backed platforms. As of this week, that lineup has its first dedicated Black and Latino-led entry, and the founder is bringing some of the largest creator audiences on the internet with him.
Don Benjamin (the actor, model and entrepreneur, formerly of America's Next Top Model) unveiled Dramatik on May 27 as a vertical micro-drama platform positioned as one of the first Black- and Latino-led platforms in the space, with a mission built around culturally driven mobile-native storytelling. The app launches June 2 at dramatikapp.com. The bench is the story here. Dramatik has signed first-look deals with three high-profile digital creators to anchor the launch slate: DeStorm Power (write, produce and star in original content), Antonio Ramos, known as Tonio Skits (comedic writing, producing and acting), and Cristian Gutierrez, known as Concrete (developing and starring in character-driven series). Together the four men carry a combined audience of more than 50 million followers across socials. Genres on the slate are the ones already driving vertical's growth, romance, thrillers, suspense and bold character-driven drama, with the first productions still in development.
Why this matters for you: If you write, direct, act or produce in vertical and you have been pitching into apps built for other audiences, there is now a buyer specifically built to commission Black and Latino stories at scale, with three of the biggest creator pipelines on the internet already inside it. Watch for the call for writers and the first commission window after the June 2 app launch, that is the door, and it is opening with creator names that pull in audiences before the marketing even starts.
🇺🇸 United States
1. aTwist's chief creative officer is making the case for "joy scrolling," and Hollywood is listening. Former National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Universal entertainment chief Susan Rovner, now chief creative officer at microdrama studio aTwist (formerly known as MicroCo, with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jana Winograde at the wheel), has been openly framing the studio's content thesis around what she calls "joy scrolling," scripted vertical content that gives viewers an escape from doomscroll-style social feeds. Rovner and Winograde, who first met in American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Entertainment's movies-for-TV division in the nineties, have set up the company to greenlight shows faster than legacy studios will, scout writer talent straight out of film school, and back whimsical premises a network would have killed in development. aTwist has a Black Entertainment Television (BET) windowing deal in its back pocket and Susan Rovner pitching "joy scrolling" as a content philosophy, that is two former network bosses building inside the format instead of against it. → The Wrap
2. Lifetime's first microdrama drops Taye Diggs into a Caribbean love triangle. A+E Global Media's Lifetime announced its first vertical title Tides of Temptation, a chapter-based micro-drama feature executive produced by Taye Diggs, Autumn Federici and Shelby Stone, set on the island of Nevis and starring Mea Wilkerson, SwagBoyQ, Troy Brookins and David John Craig. The series sits in the same cinematic universe as the Lifetime original movie Terry McMillan Presents: Paradise With You and uses Lifetime's chapter-based microdrama structure, with the premiere slated for later this year following the parent movie's debut. Lifetime is a 38-year-old basic-cable brand that just put a 90-second cliffhanger on its slate. That is what mainstream looks like for vertical now. → The Wrap
3. A new US microdrama studio just dropped its first feature, and the premiere was yesterday. Super Punchy Studios, the vertical media outfit launched by The Age Of Adaline co-writer Salvador Paskowitz and business partner Timothy "Timo" Nelligan, premiered its first title Step By Step on May 29, the first of a planned 60 distinct vertical features built and distributed through the studio's own Super Punchy app. The cast is microdrama royalty, Nicole Mattox (Vertical Queen 2025) and Seth Edeen (20-plus micro-drama credits) headline, with Molly Anderson and Haley Lohrli rounding out the leads, off a feature-length script by Kristin Monroe Paskowitz and Halo Gracey. A working Hollywood screenwriter just opened a studio, shipped a vertical feature inside two months and put two of the format's biggest faces on the call sheet. The path from "I want to make one" to "the app is live" got noticeably shorter this spring. → Deadline
Here's what else is new:
SupermodelMe goes vertical with FlareFlow. Refinery Media and COL Group International reimagined the long-running reality franchise as SupermodelMe: Make It or Break It, premiering on COL's global mobile platform FlareFlow mid-year, the first major reality intellectual property (IP) fully retooled for mobile-native vertical storytelling at this scale. → Variety
Forensic Files is heading to a phone screen. Content Partners LLC, rights holder for the long-running true-crime docuseries, signed a licensing pact with Hollywood-backed microdrama streamer GammaTime to adapt 15 of the show's most-watched cases into a vertical 9:16 format. → Variety
Verza TV pivots to a creator revenue share. E! Channel founder Alan Mruvka's Verza TV opened its platform to filmmakers, podcasters and digital creators with a hybrid pay-per-view and revenue share, plus support for horizontal as well as vertical, just four months after launch. → Hollywood Reporter
🌐 Worldwide
1. Russia just opened submissions to its first dedicated vertical drama festival. REALIST: Vertical Drama International Festival debuts in Moscow July 10 to 20, 2026 in a hybrid online plus in-person format, the first independent festival in Russia and one of the first global events dedicated entirely to vertical drama. Submissions opened May 12 and run through June 20, with categories for Best Classic Microdrama, Best Genre Vertical Series, Most Outstanding Character, Best Animated Vertical Series, Best Vertical Unscripted Series, and a Grand Prix. Projects must run at least six episodes, with each episode no longer than five minutes. The festival sits on Chill, a 2.5M monthly visitor platform launching a dedicated mobile app for the online showcase, an audience and an awards stage in the same package, for any creator who has been waiting to point a 9:16 series at a jury. → Señal News
2. One hundred African filmmakers are about to get free credits on an industrial-grade artificial intelligence (AI) video engine. Digital Creator Africa Academy (DCAA), the continent's first certified microdrama and vertical storytelling institution, and Singapore-based Video Rebirth announced on May 15 at the Global South Pavilion in Cannes' Marché du Film that 100 students in DCAA's AI Filmmaking stream will receive access credits to Video Rebirth's BACH AI video generation engine starting in May, using the engine for assessed trailers, short films and cinematic sequences as part of their training. Cannes' Global South room used to be a panel circuit, this year it became a transmission line for tools and access. One hundred African creators just got handed the same toolchain bending budgets in China and Hollywood. → iAfrica
3. Omdia just put a number on the UK's microdrama lead in Europe. Omdia Head of Media and Entertainment Maria Rua Aguete presented analysis showing the UK reached 8.2M monthly active users (MAU) on microdrama apps in 2025, far ahead of Germany's 4.4M, making the UK Europe's most advanced microdrama market by a clear margin. The US sits well above both at 66M MAUs, the largest market outside China. Omdia also bumped its global microdrama revenue estimate to over USD 14B for 2026 and forecasts the market to exceed USD 22B by 2030, with international markets accounting for nearly one-third of total revenues. If you are writing British voices, the numbers in the room just got bigger, the UK is no longer a "maybe" market in vertical, it is Europe's anchor. → Advanced Television
Here's what else is new:
Both Worlds and Freeli Films open the US-Africa microdrama lane. South Africa's Both Worlds and Atlanta-based Freeli Films launched the first US-Africa micro-drama co-production partnership at Joburg Film Festival, with Taye Diggs set to star in the first co-productions and shoots planned across South Africa, the continent and the US. → Variety
Kuku unveils India's first AI-generated microdrama slate. The audio storytelling giant rolled out the first AI-generated microdrama slate from India at the India AI Impact Summit, spanning mytho-inspired storytelling, futuristic fiction and superhero narratives rooted in Indian themes and designed for global audiences. → Marketing Mind
Pocket FM's creator economy crosses INR 300 crore. India's serialized-storytelling platform reported its creator economy has crossed INR 300 crore (USD 33M) and is targeting INR 1,000 crore (USD 110M) by year-end, with more than 300,000 creators publishing through its AI suite of Planner Agent, Context Agent and Drama Agent, plus plans to adapt 50-plus Indian IP titles for US and European audiences in 2026. → Adgully
Today's Pick
The Television Academy's emmy magazine sat down with vertical drama leading man Noah Fearnley and ReelShort writer Yaxing Lin for "Why Micro Dramas Are Big Business," a feature on how a romantic lead and an independent screenwriter both walked into the format and walked out with steady, repeat work. Worth the read for anyone trying to map what the format actually pays the creators inside it. → Read at the Television Academy
The lane just widened by 50 million followers and three writer-producer chairs. Bring your pages.
Until tomorrow. Stay Vertical.