Caught in the act: a coworker pretending to listen on a Zoom while quietly swiping through microdramas on their phone. No notes, only respect.
The format just printed an $80 million quarter
The market leader of vertical drama just put up the biggest number the format has ever produced from a single app in a quarter, and it pulled most of it from outside its home country.
ReelShort, the Sunnyvale based app owned by Crazy Maple Studio and majority backed by Shenzhen listed COL Group, cleared roughly USD 80 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, a 40% jump from the previous quarter. For context, that is one app in 90 days clearing more than the entire global vertical drama market did in any quarter two years ago. Daily active users (DAU) sit near 2.7 million, up 125% year over year, with about 45 minutes spent in app per day. DramaBox, the next biggest premium player, booked about USD 35 million over the same window, leaving ReelShort with roughly 70% of the premium short drama market. The geography flipped too. North American users now make up 35% of the base, up from 8% a year earlier, with the UK, Germany and France climbing into the top five revenue markets. Crazy Maple says all 400 of ReelShort's 2026 productions will shoot in Los Angeles.
Why this matters for you: This is the new floor. If you are pitching a vertical writer's room, a director's slot, a lead role or a crew package, the volume is real, the budget is American and the buyer is hiring at scale. The growth markets are not just the United States anymore, they are English language Europe, which means UK and German voices will start getting greenlit faster than they did last year. Watch where the next 100 titles get cast. That is where the next round of repeat hires gets made.
Sources: ReelPulse · Filmustage Blog · Marketplace · Hollywood Reporter
🇺🇸 United States
1. CandyJar's breakout actor went from a TikTok clip to no audition required. Joseph Purcell, son of Prison Break actor Dominic Purcell, has filmed multiple microdramas for CandyJar including His Nerd, Rooming With the Deviland Private Lessons, the last two trending on the platform now. CandyJar offers him roles without auditions at this point, and after his first vertical clips circulated on TikTok, director Sarah Shephard cast him in horror feature Glamping on Tubi. The pipeline from vertical to feature is finally a real thing for actors, not a theory. → Variety
2. Marc Jacobs and Rachel Sennott just made a luxury microdrama and it doubles as a handbag launch. The fashion house debuted The Scene, a scripted micro-drama written by and starring Sennott, as its Pre-Fall 2026 campaign. The series follows Sennott chasing a Met Gala invite through Manhattan, with cameos from Francesca Scorsese, Morgan Maher, True Whitaker and Sandra Bernhard, while the Scene Bag plays a co-lead. It is the first installment of a longer social-first storytelling platform called Question Marc. Writers, do not let the luxury label fool you, this is a real new buyer with a real episodic appetite. → Marketing Dive
3. The Bachelor creator, the American Idol creator and McG just walked into a vertical deal together. Range Media Partners and Google's 100 Zeros initiative are producing microdramas with veteran television producers including Mike Fleiss (The Bachelor) on a self-shot reality romance vertical called Dateable, Simon Fuller (American Idol) and McG on a scripted vertical called Newport Beach. First look distribution runs through the Google TV mobile app, which now carries a dedicated microdrama row in the United States. When the people who built reality television and tween empires both buy into the same format on the same day, that is a market signal worth tracking. → Variety
🌐 Worldwide
1. London just got its first dedicated vertical drama indie and it opened with a Northern England comedy. KIN, a new production company founded by Ben Sedley, Ben Clapp and Kate Arton, launched with All the Rage, a comedy-drama set in the North of England whose first 11 episodes are streaming on creator platform Hiway. KIN is building a slate across comedy, romance, thriller and horror, and is openly looking for brand collaborations. If you write UK voices and have ever wanted a vertical home for them, the door is now in Soho, not Sunnyvale. → Televisual
2. Beijing just escalated from takedowns to pre-production approval. China's National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) has now ordered the removal of more than 25,000 non-compliant vertical dramas, about 1.4 million episodes in total, and is moving this year from retrospective takedowns to controls at the source. Pre-release scrutiny will cover scripts, titles, character creation and approval systems, with explicit targets on tropes like "billionaire falls for ordinary woman." What gets ruled out in Beijing usually gets exported as a quiet standard. If your spec leans on lavish-CEO romance, this is your cue to write the second draft. → The Nation Thailand
3. Canada's actor union just drew the first line on vertical pay and safety. The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, Toronto branch (ACTRA Toronto) has rolled out a pilot project to set day rate limits for microdrama actors, plus rules for stunt and intimacy coordinators and the employment of underage performers. The push answers a surge in Canadian vertical gigs that are mostly non-union, with Vancouver actor Evan Bacic noting he has filmed 38 verticals since taking his first role in June 2024. Expect this template to migrate. Where ACTRA goes, the United States guilds usually follow within a year. → CBC News
Today's Pick
The Ankler dug into how vertical drama is minting brand new six-figure careers in Hollywood's slowest year for traditional television, with one operator saying "the faster you can get in, the better." Read it before your next staffing call. → Read in The Ankler
Funny how the side bet keeps showing up at the top of the table.
Until tomorrow. Stay Vertical.