<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES<\/strong> \u2013 While much of Hollywood was consumed<\/a> by the streaming wars, Issa Rae<\/a> was studying a different mode of entertainment thousands of miles away: microdramas.<\/p>\n No stranger to creating a successful online series, the Emmy-nominated actor and producer became intrigued by China’s booming market for the short, mobile-first soap operas<\/a>, seeing its potential to build audiences and intellectual property.<\/p>\n In May, Rae’s Hoorae Media released the thriller \u201cScreen Time,\u201d one of the first major studio-quality microdrama projects developed by an established Hollywood production company. The TikTok-backed series drew nearly 75 million views during its first week. <\/p>\n Rae believes the format offers advantages traditional media often cannot.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause the price point is lower than TV and film, there\u2019s an opportunity to take risks,\u201d she told The Associated Press. \u201cThe turnaround time is also a lot quicker than TV and film, which allows us the opportunity to be more topical and relevant.\u201d<\/p>\n With vertically shot episodes often running one to three minutes, microdramas have emerged as one of entertainment\u2019s fastest-growing formats. That’s drawing interest from celebrities, creators and major media companies looking for new ways to reach audiences who increasingly consume stories on their phones.<\/p>\n Beyond speed and cost, Rae said microdramas foster a more interactive viewing experience between creators and audiences.<\/p>\n \u201cThe communal experience is also amazing,\u201d said Rae, whose web series \u201cThe Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl\u201d helped launch her career. \u201cYou can see what other viewers think and engage with their commentary in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n Microdramas catch the attention of Hollywood<\/p>\n At first glance, the formula seems deceptively simple: smartphone-friendly bingeable miniepisodes featuring tales of romance, betrayal and redemption with titles like \u201cThe Double Life of My Billionaire Husband.\u201d The first few episodes are generally free and viewers have to pay to unlock more.<\/p>\n The model that first emerged in China during the pandemic has exploded \u2014 global microdrama revenues will hit $14 billion by the end of 2026, technology research and advisory group Omdia estimates \u2014 and the U.S. entertainment industry is taking note.<\/p>\n Peacock recently launched a dedicated microdrama hub. Fox Entertainment invested in microdrama producer Holywater and committed to producing hundreds of vertical titles, while TelevisaUnivision is producing serialized short-form dramas for ViX.<\/p>\n Kevin Hart\u2019s<\/a> HartBeat has expanded into vertical comedy, Kim Kardashian<\/a> is backing scripted mobile-first content through her investment in microdrama platform ReelShort, Taye Diggs<\/a> has starred in vertical series aimed at the growing audience consuming serialized stories on smartphones, and filmmaker Deon Taylor<\/a> is developing the sports-focused vertical series \u201cI Am Hoop.\u201d<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s MIP London television market, executives said some of the largest microdrama platforms are spending as much as 90% of their budgets on marketing as competition for audiences intensifies.<\/p>\n Phones provide direct access to audiences <\/p>\n Hoorae Media spent more than two years researching the format before launching \u201cScreen Time.\u201d The company became convinced microdramas represented more than a passing trend after studying how audiences were consuming entertainment on their phones.<\/p>\n \u201cThe connective tissue being the phone, and how much time people are already spending on their phone,\u201d said Dzifa Yador, head of digital at Hoorae Media. \u201cWe\u2019re meeting audiences where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n Yador believes the format gives creators something increasingly difficult to find in traditional Hollywood: Instead of waiting years for a studio decision, creators can test ideas, build an audience and retain ownership.<\/p>\n \u201cYou definitely get rid of the gatekeepers,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can greenlight your own show.\u201d<\/p>\n Independent creators helped build the audience first<\/p>\n Long before Hollywood began paying attention, creators were already proving audiences would spend hours following serialized stories online. <\/p>\n Among the most successful is Kountry Wayne, who transitioned from the comedy sketches that made him famous to a universe of interconnected relationship dramas after noting those had a longer shelf life.<\/p>\n The Georgia native, whose Amazon Prime Video stand-up special \u201cKountry Wayne: Nostalgia” debuted this year, said he now releases 50 episodes a day. <\/p>\n Wayne recently posted that his content generated about 1.4 billion views on Facebook and another 100 million on YouTube over the previous month. Meta and YouTube declined to independently verify those figures.<\/p>\n As Hollywood’s interest in vertical storytelling accelerated, the comedian said, he turned down eight-figure deals to license or acquire his content, choosing instead to keep ownership as his audience grew.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they get in, they’re going try to control it,\u201d he said. \u201cI knew it was growing.\u201d<\/p>\n The format offers a new proving ground for filmmakers<\/p>\n The American Black Film Festival, one of the nation\u2019s leading showcases for Black film and television, is giving the next generation of storytellers an entry point through the format.<\/p>\n The festival launched its first microdrama showcase this year, selecting eight finalists from hundreds of submissions. <\/p>\n Festival programmer Bobbi Broome said the response underscored how quickly creators are embracing the format.<\/p>\n \u201cAt least two or three of them said that they decided to try doing a microdrama because they saw the ABFF competition start,\u201d Broome told AP.<\/p>\n For many filmmakers, she said, the showcase was more than producing short-form content. It gave them an opportunity to test ideas that could eventually evolve into larger projects.<\/p>\n \u201cI spoke with a couple of filmmakers who said that this was kind of like their proof of concept for a feature,\u201d Broome said. \u201cThe industry is changing day in and day out.” <\/p>\n Where will microdramas go from here?<\/p>\n Rae believes microdramas are only beginning to reveal their potential.<\/p>\n \u201cWe knew audiences will appreciate premium content that is free and easily accessible,\u201d she said. \u201cIf the story is engaging, the acting is good and it generally feels made with them in mind, they will engage.\u201d<\/p>\n For Wayne, the future of the format is rooted in the same device that helped him build his audience. He said his videos are filmed on cellphones, with little traditional editing, which allows him and his team to move quickly while getting his stories to the audience with high quality visuals. <\/p>\n \u201cThe eyeballs are on the phone,\u201d he said. \u201cWe still go to the theater. We still watch TV. But we’re on this phone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news4jax.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LOS ANGELES \u2013 While much of Hollywood was consumed by the streaming wars, Issa Rae was studying a different mode of entertainment thousands of miles away: microdramas. No stranger to creating a successful online series, the Emmy-nominated actor and producer became intrigued by China’s booming market for the short, mobile-first soap operas, seeing its potential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2476279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[21796,449925,21741,368670,68192,24159,386552],"class_list":["post-2476278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-business","tag-deon-taylor","tag-entertainment","tag-issa-rae","tag-kevin-hart","tag-kim-kardashian","tag-taye-diggs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Hollywood-gets-into-the-microdrama-race-as-mobile-first-storytelling-draws.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2476278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2476280,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476278\/revisions\/2476280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2476279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2476278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2476278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2476278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}