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The Vertical Drama Invasion: China's Latest Export and Hollywood’s New Disruptor

Updated: Oct 7, 2025


by TWR. Editorial Team | Friday, Aug 29, 2025 – A strategic analysis of today’s short-form, data-driven content, and the new era of global, mobile-first storytelling for The Weekend Read. | 💬 with us about this article and more at the purple chat below-right, our Concierge powered by Bizly. 


Soap Opera . . . on Your Phone


On a warm Los Angeles afternoon, a film crew wraps up a wedding shootout scene in a quiet suburban backyard. The “mafia don” groom, dressed in a white suit, fires blank rounds into a panicked crowd as he shields his petite bride from imaginary bullets. It’s an over-the-top action beat with all the subtlety of a comic book, yet this isn’t a big-budget movie set or a network TV show. It’s a vertical drama production, a soap-opera style series filmed in portrait mode, engineered for smartphone viewing. The director watches from an array of vertical monitors as actors hit their marks. Within days, this scene will be sliced into 60‑second episodes and released on a mobile app, ready to captivate an audience scrolling on phones around the world.



This is the new reality of Hollywood’s fringes: Chinese-financed short-form dramas, conceived for the TikTok generation and now booming in American cities like Los Angeles and New York. These bite-sized series, usually 50 to 100 episodes of one to two minutes each, deliver rapid-fire melodrama and relentless cliffhangers. In China, they're called "verticals" or micro-dramas, and they've already exploded into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Now, thanks to a wave of Chinese investment and new mobile platforms, vertical dramas are proliferating in the U.S., shaking up Hollywood's labor pools and storytelling norms in the process.


Quick Take: Why Mobile Dramas Matter Now


  • Fast-Growing Niche: They are a booming, mobile-first entertainment format that originated in China and is rapidly gaining popularity in the US.

  • Unique Business Model: The content is monetized through a "freemium" model, where early episodes are free, and viewers pay for the rest.

  • High-Volume Production: Shows are produced quickly and on low budgets, often with non-union actors.

  • Major Audience: Apps like ReelShort and DramaBox are seeing explosive user growth, in some cases outpacing traditional streaming services.

  • Hollywood Opportunity: The trend is creating a new, consistent stream of work for actors and production crews.


From Douyin to Los Angeles: The Rise of Verticals


The concept of vertically-shot scripted series first caught fire in China during the pandemic, as millions turned to mobile entertainment. Chinese studios began flooding apps like Kuaishou and Douyin (China’s version of TikTok) with professionally produced micro-dramas. By 2024, Chinese micro-drama revenues reportedly hit over $6.8 billion, surpassing domestic cinema receipts for the first time. In just a few years, these quick-swipe phone serials grew from a novelty to a dominant entertainment format.


It was only a matter of time before this phenomenon spread globally. Facing saturation at home, Chinese tech and media firms began looking overseas. The United States emerged as a prime target, with its massive base of streaming-savvy consumers. By 2024, mobile drama apps outside of China had made $1.2 billion, with a full 60% of that revenue coming from U.S. audiences. Dozens of new platforms have launched to serve this demand, many backed by Chinese capital.


As one assistant director noted, many started doing verticals "because there was nothing else."

The catalyst in the U.S. was a Silicon Valley-based startup called Crazy Maple Studio, helmed by CEO Joey Jia. Sensing an opportunity to merge romance fiction trends with Asia’s micro-drama format, Jia launched the app ReelShort in 2022. Crazy Maple has Chinese DNA from the start—it's backed by Beijing’s COL Group, a pioneer in vertical video dramas. ReelShort's early content was directly inspired by the formula honed on Douyin: high-drama plots in bite-size chapters. The approach paid off quickly. By early 2025, one report found that a rival app, DramaBox, averaged 44 million active users, a figure that rivals some mainstream streamers.


Yun Xie directing a vertical drama (current title: ‘DR. Kiss Me! STAT!’) - credit: Indie Wire's Dana Harris-Bridson
Yun Xie directing a vertical drama (current title: ‘DR. Kiss Me! STAT!’) - credit: Indie Wire's Dana Harris-Bridson

This success is striking given the recent memory of Quibi, Hollywood’s ill-fated attempt at mobile streaming. In 2020, Jeffrey Katzenberg spent $1.75 billion on Quibi, betting on "quick bite" 10-minute episodes of prestige television with A-list stars and a gimmick that allowed for both landscape and portrait viewing. The result was a spectacular flop that shut down in six months. Joey Jia and others watched and learned. Vertical platforms succeeded where Quibi failed by embracing cheap, data-driven content over Hollywood glitz.


Low Budgets, High Volume: The New Economics


There's an old Hollywood adage: "Fast, cheap, good—pick two." Vertical drama makers have unapologetically picked fast and cheap, betting that viewers won't mind a drop in "quality" if the soapy stories keep them hooked. Unlike traditional streaming shows that can cost millions per episode, these mobile-first series are produced on micro-budgets. An entire vertical drama series (often equivalent to a 70–90 minute movie) can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000 to produce. By comparison, a single hour-long TV episode can run into the millions.


How can they produce so cheaply? Sets and effects are minimal, costumes are basic, and scripts are often adapted from existing online fiction, saving on development costs. Crucially, the casts are comprised of non-union, up-and-coming actors who work for day rates that are far below Hollywood union scale. Casting breakdowns show typical pay of roughly $150–$300 per day for lead roles. These actors also forgo residuals or benefits, making the labor costs extremely attractive for producers.



Most vertical platforms make money through a freemium subscription model that turns storytelling into a psychological game of bait-and-hook. The first dozen or so episodes of a series are free, but if you want to see how the story ends, you eventually hit a paywall. Platforms analyze where viewership drops off and insert the paywall right before the engagement dips, maximizing the odds that already-invested viewers will pay to continue. Instead of a flat monthly fee, these apps often charge by consumption—for example, a user might pay a few cents per episode or buy coin packages. Heavy users can end up paying far more than a normal streaming subscription, with some dedicated fans spending $20 per week or more.


Another app, My Drama, has reported that its hit series routinely generate $12–15 million in revenue each, which is on par with the average U.S. theatrical film’s box office take. The user engagement is enormous, with a single vertical series racking up hundreds of millions of views. For instance, one title, The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband, has been watched over 419 million times. According to The Washington Post, vertical streaming platforms are "beating Netflix, Hulu and Paramount+ in user growth" by catering to short attention spans hungry for constant thrills.


Labor Pains and Gig Gains: Non-Union Actors Find Work


For Hollywood’s workforce, the vertical drama boom has been a mixed blessing. On one hand, it’s a jobs machine at a time when traditional production has slowed. The pandemic and the twin labor strikes of 2023 (WGA and SAG-AFTRA) left countless cast and crew struggling for work. Into that void stepped the vertical studios. As one assistant director noted, many started doing verticals "because there was nothing else." A parallel industry of outsiders—underemployed crew and actors without union cards—has taken root to feed the demand.



Chief among them are the actors. Marc Herrmann, a leading man on ReelShort, recalled that casting calls became dominated by verticals. The vertical drama ecosystem has grown large enough to mint its own stars, like Kasey Esser, and even lock some into exclusive contracts. Casting director Sammie Hao, who oversees talent for Crazy Maple, noted that by late 2023, casting sites were filled with calls for vertical micro-dramas, and a whole cohort of performers emerged who work only on these projects. This is reminiscent of Hollywood’s old studio era, but with a new twist: many of the gatekeepers are young women of color, reflecting the diverse leadership behind these platforms.


Some users are literally canceling or pausing mainstream streaming subscriptions in favor of vertical drama apps.

For actors struggling to break in, verticals can be a godsend. However, there are potential pitfalls. Pay rates are modest and there are no residuals if a series becomes a smash hit. Protections that unions provide, like regulated work hours and health benefits, are generally absent. Many vertical projects operate on non-union contracts, which SAG-AFTRA has warily tolerated so far because the budgets fall under "new media" low-budget thresholds. If this sector continues to grow, it could raise major labor issues, as unions fear a scenario where an expanding chunk of production lives permanently outside their jurisdiction.



As the industry matures, companies like inArtists (iA) have emerged as key partners in a rapidly evolving media landscape, offering AI-driven solutions to streamline production workflows, manage digital assets, and optimize content for this fast-paced format. By leveraging technology to handle the complexities of high-volume production, they enable producers to focus on creative execution and talent management, bridging the gap between traditional Hollywood and this new media frontier.


Tropes, Taboos, and TikTok Storytelling


What kind of stories do these vertical dramas tell? In a word: addictive. They are engineered for maximum dopamine hits, a constant rush of heightened emotion and plot twists designed to keep your thumb from swiping away. Subtlety is rare; melodrama is king. Every 90-second installment must "advance the story, heighten the melodrama, and summarize the plot for anyone just tuning in."



Several dominant tropes have emerged as surefire winners. Many are borrowed straight from romance novels and soap operas: secret billionaires, contract marriages, evil stepmothers, amnesia love triangles, and revenge plots galore. The "undercover billionaire" or "secret heiress" motif is so common that the title often gives away the ending—e.g., Baby Trapped by the Billionaire. Viewers aren’t seeking surprise; rather, they relish anticipating the promised comeuppance. Another staple is the forced or fake marriage storyline, reflecting a fascination with age-gap dynamics and "tradwife" fantasies. Paranormal romances, especially werewolves, are also hugely popular, a legacy of Chinese web-novel genres. The campy, exaggerated tone is often self-aware, and viewers are in on the fun.


Perhaps the most defining narrative technique is the constant cliffhanger. Every episode (many of which are just one minute long) ends on a shock or revelation designed to provoke just one more view. A single series can pack in 70–80 plot twists. This serialized structure is perfectly attuned to the "swipe psychology" of social media: if every moment is shocking or emotional, the viewer never gets bored enough to swipe away.



Critics complain this leads to lowest-common-denominator content that can feel formulaic. However, producers like ReelShort’s Bofan Zhang respond bluntly that they only create what the audience consumes: "If people wouldn’t pay for it, we will stop doing it." This starkly pragmatic, algorithm-guided approach to storytelling makes the content highly responsive to audience tastes.


Beyond Melodrama: Expansion into New Genres


At first, vertical dramas were almost entirely romantic melodramas. But as the user base grows, the platforms are hungry to capture other demographics and tastes. We are now seeing the beginnings of a genre expansion.


One obvious area is action. ReelShort recently rolled out Undercover Prison King, an action-thriller. The success of this series suggests that fast-paced action can work in the vertical format, not just romance. Crime and thriller elements are also creeping in. Even more surprising, unscripted content is debuting. ReelShort is launching Love Bombing, an unscripted dating show made for vertical viewing. These moves suggest vertical platforms want a piece of the reality TV pie.


Established Western entertainment players are starting to pay attention. Netflix has reportedly been testing a vertical video feed in its app, signaling that major streamers are exploring vertical presentation, perhaps as a gateway to actual vertical series. While they have been cautious, the rapid growth numbers and low cost of entry make it likely that major players will jump in if the trend continues.



On the creative side, adding new genres means broadening the audience beyond the largely female fanbase that kickstarted the trend. ReelShort’s internal data showed their early audience was overwhelmingly millennial and middle-aged women. To grow, they need content for other groups. The series You Fired a Tech Genius, a tale of workplace revenge, was a deliberate play for male viewers and worked, with an audience that was about 60% male. Seeing that, ReelShort is now "homing in" on storylines to capture more men, likely with themes of action, sci-fi, or entrepreneurship.


Hollywood’s Reckoning: Disruption or Fad?


Should Hollywood be worried about this vertical drama explosion? In many ways, it already is. The entertainment industry is in a moment of flux, and into this turbulence comes a new challenger not from traditional studios but from tech-oriented upstarts with Chinese backing. Vertical dramas fill a niche Hollywood has often ignored: low-budget serialized pulp that can be consumed in very short bursts. As one fan noted, instead of another crime thriller on Hulu, she’d rather "pull up ReelShort and watch two people fall in love" for a few minutes.


However, the scale and growth of these apps suggest they aren’t just a sideshow. With user bases in the tens of millions and audiences that are outpacing legacy streamers in growth, they are emerging as formidable competitors for eyeballs. Some users are literally canceling or pausing mainstream streaming subscriptions in favor of vertical drama apps. This dollar diversion could, if it continues, force the big players to adapt or compete in kind.


From a labor perspective, Hollywood’s unions will need to grapple with the implications. Will SAG-AFTRA and the WGA try to organize vertical drama production as it grows, or will this industry remain a non-union "wild west?" The fact that vertical producers exploited the 2023 strike period to staff up quickly with idle actors shows a clear tension.


It would be a mistake to dismiss verticals as a fad. They have tapped into something very now: the fusion of attention-hacking tactics from the internet age with the oldest tricks of storytelling. As film historian Tim Wu observed, "when television was first invented, no one thought it would surpass movies. Vertical dramas are the same today."


The future of showbiz may well be measured out in 90-second episodes. For U.S. entertainment, this boom is a reminder that the industry’s next disruption may not come from a new Hollywood studio, but from the cross-currents of global capital and changing consumer habits. Hollywood can ignore them, but it might be wiser to take a page from their truncated script. The vertical revolution shows no signs of slowing - and if you want to see the final twist, you’ll have to pay and keep watching. The show, as they say, must go on … vertically.



Insightful perspectives and deep dives into the technologies, ideas, and strategies shaping our world. This piece reflects the collective expertise and editorial voice of The Weekend Read.



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