The titles are provocative and extremely clickable: “Found a Homeless Billionaire Husband for Christmas.” “I Became My CEO’s Darkest Secret.” “How to Tame a Silver Fox.”
The videos are equally soapy, seductive and to the point. With each lasting just a minute to 90 seconds, they have to be.
Welcome to the world of short dramas, which TheWrap first wrote about one year ago and have exploded in revenue and viewership since then.
In just four years since the launch of these vertical dramas, the genre’s market has surpassed $8 billion globally, according to Media Partners Asia, with the vast majority of that figure coming from China.
Once dismissed as a niche Chinese trend, short dramas are now one of the fastest-growing scripted formats — and Hollywood’s studios, producers and investors are finally catching on. Fox Entertainment has invested in one of the major players, and Telemundo Studios is producing its own adaptations. SAG-AFTRA and WGA have also made vertical agreements to protect their guild members and give them opportunities to work in the market.
These sensationalized mini-videos captivate young audiences whose attention spans have already been whittled down by TikTok. Each vertical short film has a run time of 60 to 100 minutes but is divided into about 90-second episodes, each one ending with a juicy cliffhanger while the next chapter is just a scroll away.
Users get the first eight to 10 episodes for free, but must pay to unlock the rest of the content. The leading apps use coin-based models, subscription services (with some costing up to $19.99 per week) and ad-supported tiers to make a profit off of addicted audiences. And as the addictive nature of scrolling-based video apps like TikTok has already been proven, getting viewers hooked is the name of the game.
With the top series garnering over 350 million views a piece, the short dramas are not just a fad. Just as TikTok’s dominance cemented itself over the last few years, so have Chinese short dramas or “Duanju,” which have since exploded around the world and, in particular, the United States as companies have adapted the programming for Western audiences with English-language dramas, using AI to dub content into other languages.
In-app revenue from short drama apps in the U.S. grew 20% quarter-on-quarter, reaching nearly $350 million in the first quarter, according to Sensor Tower. As major film and television studios take their production elsewhere, verticals have profited off of the local on-and-off screen talent in Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York, making content for a fraction of the price. The budget for a vertical series is anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000 with an eight- to 10-day production cycle.
The Chinese short form dramas market grew from $500 million in revenue in 2021 to $7 billion in 2024, and it’s projected to hit $16.2 billion by 2030, according to Media Partners Asia. Chinese state media reported that the sector had gross revenues of $5.2 billion in 2023, equivalent to about 70% of the country’s theatrical box office revenue. According to data from Sensor Tower, total revenue for the short dramas industry globally has risen 41% over a year ago as of October.
“In terms of growth, it just reminds me a lot of the early days of YouTube,” digital creator-turned-verticals producer Scott Brown told TheWrap. “YouTube creators collectively discovered an audience desire that had not yet been presented to them, so what these mostly Chinese companies figured out is that there is a desire for audiences to consume and watch movie-length stories, but in one-ish minute chapters.”
The players defining the market
ReelShort, DramaBox and GoodShort dominate the U.S. verticals market. They were the top downloaded micro drama apps in the U.S. this year. Their “guilty pleasure” content pairs sensationalized storytelling with TikTok-style advertising to hook new audiences, many of whom are willing to pay to play.
The payment comes in different forms, whether its through a standard subscription, watching ads or making in-app purchases for digital coins that can be redeemed for more episodes, gamifying the business for users.
The verticals are orchestrated to keep viewers hooked. They lean into highly dramatized and emotionally charged storylines, using big teases after every episode to make viewers scroll. Many of the storylines feature high-drama romantic relationships — sometimes violent in nature — while others depict rags to riches stories. The term “billionaire” can be seen several times in the top performing shorts on the app.
But the key to staying on top is keeping your audience fed. For many of the leading vertical’s studios, it is about quantity over quality. ReelShort’s U.S. head of content, Abby Dzeng, told TheWrap that she and her team of 20 writers produce 15 to 20 verticals scripts a month.
The biggest misconception, Dzeng said, is that writing short dramas is easy. For many of her writers, they have had to unlearn techniques from the traditional world and adapt to the fast-paced, time-constrained format of short dramas. Dzeng’s team is data-driven, specifically targeting views for the leading series on ReelShort and iterating on new story concepts based around tropes that sell.
“We actually follow a pretty similar pattern to Hollywood but just extremely fast,” she said. “They see success in repeating their IPs, franchise work and new installments in the same franchise. That’s always a so-called box office guarantee. We definitely do see the benefits in that in verticals as well.”
With 70 million monthly active users as of October, ReelShort is one of the leading players in the market with 90% of its viewership coming from the U.S. Most of its titles deal with gut-wrenching romances, but the app has started to lean into thrillers and even unscripted series. Dzeng said although sequels and tropes are often sure-bets, her team has experimented with new genres popularized in the webnovel space with parent Crazy Maple Studio.
@reelshortapp 🫨Two men, one secret power—who will claim her heart? 🎬𝘿𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙏𝙬𝙤: 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙑𝙖𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙃𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧 is now streaming on ReelShort! 👉Click my bio to watch the FULL SERIES on ReelShort! #reelshort #drama #love #fyp #series #mustwatch #lovetriangle #darkromance ♬ original sound – ReelShort
Ukrainian vertical shorts player MyDrama, owned by Holywater, launched in April 2024 but is already bumping up production from four to six series per month to 15 by the end of the year. Its goal for 2026 is to ramp up to 30 series per month and $1 billion in revenue to become competitive in the market. The tool for scaling up at a fraction of the cost: AI.
“What’s happening right now with AI, it basically helps us to lower barriers to entry and building similar content is like 10 times cheaper,” said Anatolii Kasianov, co-founder and co-CEO of Holywater, which owns MyDrama. Holywater has garnered 2 billion social impressions per month from its AI-generated and original short dramas content, but they want to scale up even more. “Our goal is to reach 10 billion impressions by the end of the year using AI content, using our organic experience.”
Holywater has an entire app dedicated to AI-generated content, MyMuse. It uses the app as a way to test storylines that it will then produce with actors for MyDrama. Kasianov’s goal for the app is to release 100 AI-generated short series per month in 2026.
Not all vertical drama producers see AI as a necessary part of their work. For MyDrama, the company uses AI for dubbing and subtitles but “not for storytelling.” Dzeng said AI has “no place” in her writers’ room at ReelShort. The app uses the tool for VFX enhancement to expedite the production process, she said, but she is “extremely strict” that no writers use it in creating concepts. Brown, who collaborated with Holywater on his first short drama “The Diamond Rose,” agreed that he has not found any value from AI coming up with the storylines.
Outside of AI, Holywater has also leaned into partnerships, bringing on Hollywood writers and producers for one-off vertical series and nurturing a long-term partnership with Spanish-language content studio Elefantec Global. The European company shoots in L.A., leaning on Hollywood’s resources, as well as Atlanta and Vancouver. Fox Entertainment also acquired a stake in the company, agreeing to produce 200 series with the company in the next two years.
“What we see is this huge opportunity in Hollywood right now where there is a crisis and not a lot of stuff is being filmed,” Holywater co-founder and co-CEO Bogdan Nesvit told TheWrap. “This means that there is a huge supply of talent that we can actually find, and we can invest in them and give them an opportunity to reach tens of millions of users through our platform.”
Labor, rights and union recognition
Vertical productions have benefited from their cheaper, nonunion model. With long set days and short production schedules, their conditions for actors do not always comply with SAG-AFTRA’s guidelines.
Being nonunion has allowed the productions to operate with a $150,000 to $300,000 budget. The lack of union compliances with overtime pay also allows them to shoot 15 to 20 pages on a 12-hour day in a 10-day production cycle. The nonunion gigs pay day-players a minimum of $250 per day with leads negotiating rates of $1200.
But as the space has grown in popularity, both SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America have started to take notice. SAG-AFTRA said that a “Verticals Agreement” would be forthcoming by the end of October. It would encompass projects that have budgets of under $300,000, in line with the typically small budgets and tight turnarounds of these made-for-mobile titles. The contract is intended to allow SAG members to participate in the vertical projects that they may have been excluded from because of the guild’s restrictions.
For new SAG member JT Garcia, the agreement comes at the perfect time. Garcia graduated from his collegiate acting program into the 2023 writers and actors’ strikes. He took his first short drama gig in the spring 2024 – they were then listed as “mobisodes” on self-submission platforms like Actor’s Access. He had no prior knowledge of the genre, but after the success of his first vertical, Garcia booked consistent work across several platforms — so much so that he said he’s now able to fully financially support himself from verticals work. When he joined SAG-AFTRA last month, he was nervous that he would have to leave his vertical short dramas income behind. That now may not be the case.
Even supporting actors in verticals can make a living, Garcia said. Because the projects have such short production schedules, actors can book five to seven verticals a month if they are a day player or supporting character, whereas leading performers could realistically book two vertical productions a month. Once actors grow their fanbases on the apps, they are able to negotiate higher rates with the companies.
“I’m really interested to see when the language comes out about what’s in the [SAG] agreement,” he told TheWrap. “If we’re going to be doing the same length script, same type of shoots that we’re doing, that’s not going to be possible within an eight-hour day, especially when you have overtime the way that SAG-AFTRA handles overtime. That’s going to stack up costs quickly.”
The WGA said in September that writing for verticals is covered by the guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA). However, if a vertical isn’t signed to a union contract, it’s a no-go according to union rules. The WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA) features terms for shortform and low-budget programming that accommodates this kind of format.
Hollywood’s investment
Hollywood overall has also started to take notice of the vertical shorts boom. For Telemundo’s Chief Content Officer Javier Pons, it was important to get ahead of the craze, and his leadership at NBC agreed.
“We don’t have to wait until the market goes and tells us what we have to do,” Pons told TheWrap. “There’s not a big volume for the moment, but I think it’s going to be huge in the future.”
Telemundo Studios is the first major traditional entertainment player to enter into the vertical short dramas space. It said in September that it plans to bring telenovela storytelling to the short form format, adapting series for vertical, producing original content and collaborating with a faith-based studio, VIP 2000 TV.
Though the productions do not yet have distribution homes, Pons said that he has had conversations internally at NBC as well as with leading vertical shorts partners with established audiences.
Several short form executives who spoke with TheWrap also said that streamers have expressed interest in future collaborations.
Fox Entertainment acquired an equity stake in Holywater, home to vertical platforms MyDrama and AI-generated verticals hub MyMuse, in early October. The deal will allow the companies to collaborate across original vertical video series production, ad sales and brand partnerships. Additionally, Holywater can adapt Fox Entertainment IP into the vertical video format, including “storytelling extensions” for current Fox shows and remake projects.
As part of the deal, Fox Entertainment Studios has committed to creating and producing more than 200 vertical video titles for MyDrama over the next two years, which will help co-founders Nesvit and Kasianov reach their goal of 300 series in 2026.
“To make it mainstream, we need to appeal to U.S. audiences,” Nesvit said. “That’s why we’re partnering with Hollywood.”
ReelShort has also established partnerships with Paramount. While the platform is not looking to sell, ReelShort has partnered with the studio to promote its latest Colleen Hoover adaptation “Regretting You,” premiering in theaters Friday. The partnership melds the companies’ shared interests in romance and YA audiences.
Short dramas executives told TheWrap this type of strategic partnership is just the beginning. With unions now throwing their hats in the ring, the format is safer and more visible as a legit branch of entertainment, not just social content.
“Strategic M&A, I believe, will happen in this market in the future,” co-founder and COO of DramaShorts Leo Ovdiienko told TheWrap. “It’s basically a way to distribute the content. We already know that a lot of players look into this market because it’s huge. Revenue is growing like five times year over year.”
As a newcomer to the space, Second Rodeo Productions’ Scott Brown began his career in digital, working for MrBeast and creating web series for The Rock and Larry David. After completing his first short drama series, Brown now advises newcomers to get into the verticals industry.
“Anyone who comes to me and asks, ‘What is the smartest thing I can do with this money I’ve cobbled together to make something?’ I say, ‘Make a micro drama,’” he said. “That is the smartest thing you can do with your career.”
