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Tiny confession: we have started defending our microdrama habit with the phrase "it is basically a novel, just faster," and we are about 70% sure we believe it. The other 30% is still buffering. Happy 4th of July!
Vertical's next whodunit has Uber Eats in the cast
Here is a sentence we did not expect to write: a delivery app is now a murder suspect. Blink49, the Toronto studio behind Front Street Pictures and Lighthearted Entertainment, just unveiled the first vertical micro-drama from its branded arm, Brand Studio, and it is a mobile-first mystery called "Murder at the Mansion," set for this fall. The twist is the casting. Uber Eats is woven into the story itself, not bolted on as a pre-roll ad, so the brand becomes a thread in the whodunit rather than an interruption to it.
This is what a brand deal looks like when a real studio runs it. Blink49 head of vertical content Tieren Hawkins is writing, president Adam Puchalsky is steering, and the whole thing was built with ad giant Omnicom, with more to be revealed at Cannes Lions. Blink49 is backed by Fifth Season and Bell Media, which means this is studio-grade money and craft pointed at a 9:16 screen.
Why this matters for you: When a studio with feature and television pedigree spends real budget making an original vertical mystery, and a global brand pays to live inside the plot, that is a new, well-funded commissioning lane for writers, directors and crew. Someone has to build the world, land the hooks and cut the episodes. That someone can be you.
🇺🇸 United States
1. The creator of CSI is writing microdramas now. Anthony E. Zuiker, the showrunner behind CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, is writing original vertical series for Bill Block's premium United States microdrama app GammaTime, with titles including the thriller "The Temptress" and sex-crime drama "Lust Cop." He is the first major Hollywood showrunner to write projects built specifically for the format, and he says the appeal is speed: greenlight to release in six to eight weeks. When a network-crime architect chooses vertical for the velocity, the "not real TV" line gets a lot harder to say. → Deadline · C21Media
2. Netflix and CBS alumni built a premium vertical studio, and it is shipping. Shorties Studios, founded by former Netflix Europe content chief Kelly Luegenbiehl, ex-CBS comedy executive Jon Koa and OGM Pictures founder Onur Güvenatam, launched its microdrama "The Prince and the Royal Wedding Planner" on GammaTime, directed by Dan Löwenstein. The Los Angeles, London and Istanbul outfit is chasing commercial, mobile-first series for a global audience. A room full of streaming-and-network resumes deciding vertical is where they want to build is its own kind of signal. → World Screen · Deadline
3. Hollywood is getting a micro-drama festival with an open door. The AI International Micro-Drama Festival, from the nonprofit team behind the AI International Film Festival, is running its first micro-drama edition with a live awards night at Mel's Drive-In in Hollywood, jury and audience prizes, and open submissions through FilmFreeway. It takes every aspect ratio including vertical 9:16, welcomes artificial intelligence (AI) work but never requires it, and accepts anything from 60 seconds up. An actual red carpet for people making 90-second stories, no permission slip from a platform required. → FilmFreeway · Eventbrite
Here's what else is new:
ReelShort dropped a royal-romance breakout. "High Society," a royal-fantasy romance led by Chase Mattson and Maria Barseghian, premiered on ReelShort in late June and became one of the app's most talked-about United States originals of the summer, more steady work for the growing bench of vertical leads. → ReelShort
Amazon MGM is funding AI-made series, and a filmmaker walked. The studio greenlit three Prime Video series under a new artificial intelligence (AI) creators fund, then director Jorge Gutierrez pulled his project after backlash, a live preview of the consent fights coming for every AI-assisted pipeline, vertical ones included. → Variety
🌐 Worldwide
1. GoodShort shot its first Canadian original. "One Last Temptation Before I Say I Do," a reality-styled dating drama with eight contestants in a luxury villa, is the first vertical series GoodShort has produced in Canada, made by Vancouver's Service Street Pictures and directed by Brianne Nord-Stewart. The cast pulls recognizable reality faces, including Too Hot to Handle's Matthew Stephen Smith and Home and Away's Nic Westaway. A top-tier app planting a camera in Vancouver instead of importing and dubbing is a whole new set of local call sheets. → C21Media · World Screen
2. A microdrama cast an AI version of a real actor, on purpose. Israeli platform Shortical released "Inevitable," which it bills as the first AI-generated microdrama built on a real performer's likeness. Actor Aki Avni plays an AI version of himself in a thriller where his own face is implicated in a murder he did not commit, directed by Ofir Lobel. Shortical, which logs more than 20 million episode views a month, put the AI-consent question inside the plot as well as the production. The likeness debate is not theoretical anymore, it is the pitch. → The Wrap
3. A British studio and a distributor are building the UK's own vertical. Spirit Studios and Night Train Media are in funded development on one of the first UK-originated microdramas, casting a collective of emerging British writers and actors and using artificial intelligence (AI) tools trained on the format's rhythm to help hone scripts, with a global rollout planned through Night Train Digital. Europe is done watching the imports and is quietly learning to shoot its own.→ Deadline · C21Media
Here's what else is new:
COL Group and BeLive packaged a microdrama service in a box. Their "Microdrama in a Box," unveiled at FILMART in Hong Kong, pairs COL's content library with BeLive's streaming technology so a partner can stand up a branded microdrama app in around 30 days, with vertical playback, subscription and ad-supported monetization and AI subtitling built in. → Variety · Señal News
Berlin gave vertical a seat at the market. The European Film Market at the Berlinale devoted a dedicated Bridging Visions workshop to vertical microdrama, treating the format as a serious business line rather than a novelty and pointing indie filmmakers toward it as a new narrative economy. → Raindance
Today's Pick
A sharp read on how vertical actually gets made, why the apps often skip famous faces, how male viewers are coming aboard, and what the craft of the format really demands. → Read in The Hollywood Reporter
When the mind behind a network crime franchise and a global delivery brand both come shopping for vertical scripts, the writer who can land a hook is the most useful name in the room.
Until tomorrow. Stay Vertical.
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