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Former Miramax CEO Bill Block Launches GammaTime
Courtesy of GammaTime
Hollywood is officially getting into the microdrama business — low-cost, mobile-first, vertical shows made up of 1-2 minute, mostly-paywalled episodes — as former studios heads launch new ventures and SAG-AFTRA gives the format its stamp of approval.
The Big Picture: Microdramas are already a $7 billion industry in China, with global revenue expected to hit $25 billion by 2030. The US is quickly catching on, with American audiences leading global consumer spending. In Hollywood, where production costs are rising and box office returns are shrinking, some execs are betting that the short, cheap TV format can fill the gap.
Behind The Scenes: A new wave of studios hopes to become the Netflix of microdramas rather than a rerun of Quibi.
Former Miramax CEO Bill Block just launched GammaTime, backed by $14 million from investors including Alexis Ohanian and Kim Kardashian. Its first slate includes 20 shows, with two from CSI creator Anthony Zuiker.
MicroCo, founded by Cineverse CEO (and former president of Universal and MGM) Chris McGurk, plans to debut its first shows in early 2026.
Fox Entertainment recently took a stake in Ukrainian platform Holywater, whose My Drama app could soon be programmed on Tubi.
Meanwhile, SAG-AFTRA introduced a contract specifically for microdramas with budgets under $300,000, clearing the path for union talent.
Final Credits: The big pitch behind these new studios is that they’ll bring Hollywood-level production and polish to what has, so far, been a decidedly non-premium experience. It’s not that they’re shying away from the racy romances and melodramatic mob tales the format is known for (one of Zuiker’s shows is literally called The Lust Cop), but rather that they aim to do it better — and across more genres — while still keeping budgets lean.
And if they can spark even more virality by casting digital stars, all the better. Or, as MicroCO co-founder and CEO Jana Winograde describes it: “We’re sort of looking at it as a bridge between the creator economy as it currently exists and the traditional studio-produced series.”
Next Episode: It’s hard to imagine microdramas truly competing with Hollywood… but the mobile-first battle for attention in this space may end up being between microdramas and AI-generated shows. Welcome to the post–social media attention economy.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.