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Microdrama App Tattle TV Programs Vertical Hitchcock Movie
Courtesy of The Lodger // Illustration by Kate Walker
UK microdrama platform Tattle TV is making legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s first major film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog, available in vertical mini-episodes.
The Big Picture: Microdrama consumption is starting to skyrocket in the US after years of success in Southeast Asia. Last quarter, downloads of short-form, vertical video apps grew 186% year over year, according to a report by Sensor Tower. It was only a matter of time before premium films and shows found their way onto these apps in a bid to win over new audiences.
Between The Episodes: Classic cinema is coming for Gen Z viewing habits.
Tattle told Deadline that its inclusion of the silent film The Lodger on the app is “one of the first known instances of a classic feature film being fully reframed for vertical, mobile-first consumption.”
Tattle was able to offer the film in this new form because it entered the public domain in the US in 2023. But it’s still under copyright in the UK and EU, so the film isn’t available in those regions.
The Verge notes that the Tattle adaptation cuts whole characters out of the frame to keep the focus on the two main characters and features an out-of-place modern thriller score.
Last Chapter: It’s unclear what the demand is among microdrama app users to watch a nearly 100-year-old, black-and-white, silent movie in the same endless-scroll style as a TikTok video. Still, Tattle TV heads Philip McGoldrick and Marina Elderton are bullish, saying it gives people “an interesting introduction to what a vertical is.”
Maybe randomly coming across a three-minute clip of the movie is enough to draw some viewers in. It’s the algorithm in action. But those who don’t feel like paying for individual chapters on Tattle may simply opt to watch it for free on YouTube. It’s legal, after all.
Coming Soon: It’s only a matter of time before studios and streamers start licensing modern projects to microdrama platforms to experiment with a new revenue stream. Trailers are already shown vertically on Instagram and TikTok, after all.
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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.