On Mondays, Variety reported that RoseBerry Media is cutting episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbors “In microdramas.” These clips will be available on Epis, a short-form vertical video streaming platform. Although Neighbors It aired for 41 seasons from 1985 to 2025; At launch, RoseBerry is only cutting out two late-aughts stories centered on a character played by the now internationally famous Margot Robbie.
In a statement about the project, RoseBerry co-founder and CEO Guy Hameiri described Neighbors as “an iconic piece of television history” that is well suited to being adapted for vertical viewing with the company’s proprietary AI-powered production workflow. Hameiri also said he believes the project will demonstrate how “premium vertical television will become an important new entertainment category,” one that can help introduce a classic series to new audiences.
VarietyThe framing of the new vertical cut of RoseBerry from Neighbors As a kind of microdrama it is curious. Microdramas are short-form vertical videos that often feature characters who get caught up in complicated romantic plots, making them a bit similar to Neighbors in terms of their shared theme. But unlike network television shows with hefty budgets, microdramas are produced on the cheap and designed specifically to be consumed on mobile devices. And when you consider how microdramas tend to adhere to a narrative formula that begins with intrigue and closes with melodramatic cliffhangers, it’s easy to see the format as a narrative genre in itself.
Over the past year, reports from the entertainment industry have made it seem like Hollywood is ready to go all-in on microdramas, and that these types of projects could help the industry bring much-needed production work back to Los Angeles. It is not clear if VarietyThe wording reflects the shift in the industry’s definition of microdramas, or whether studios are simply trying to use buzzwords to generate publicity. But if microdramas are really going to be a key part of Hollywood’s future, we should probably all have a general understanding of what they really are.
Both the amount of money that was invested Neighbors and the quality of the cast’s acting make it a very different type of entertainment than the microdramas that have become hits from companies like ReelShort and DramaBox. What is RoseBerry doing with Neighbors It’s much more like what Tattle TV did with Alfred Hitchcock’s silent film The Tenant: A History of the London Fog earlier this year, and what startup Snips is doing with series like Big Brother and MasterChef. While there may be an audience for these things, it seems a little disingenuous to lump them in with cheesy, short series like Forbidden adventure with my best friend’s dad that defined and popularized microdramas as a format in the West.
Microdramas originated in China, where they began to gain traction around 2018 on platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou (both analogues of TikTok). Kuaishou’s The unexpected (a satirical comedy about a man struggling to achieve his goals) was one of the first Chinese microseries to make waves, and as social video platforms embraced e-commerce, brands began to see microdramas as a viable way to market their products to viewers. As the audience for microdramas grew, more Chinese film and television production studios began producing microdramas, and by 2021, short video revenue was projected to reach $500 million. That figure was expected to reach $7 billion in 2024 and $16.2 billion in 2030.
Although microdramas in all languages tend to be seen as lower quality entertainment, their main appeal is quite easy to grasp. The series leans heavily on well-established narrative tropes, and its stories are generally designed to leave viewers guessing what kind of outlandish twists they’re about to see next. The verticality of microdramas and the way they are presented in short minute segments makes them the type of content that should be consumed through a phone screen. Microdramas’ relatively small production budgets also positioned them to become a viable way for promising actors and filmmakers to land consistent work. But in recent months, that promise has been thwarted by the spread of generative artificial intelligence.
Especially in China, generational AI has had a devastating impact on the economics of microdrama for human actors. Ninety-five percent of Chinese microdramas produced in the first three months of this year were created with AI, which has led to fewer jobs and lower wages. A similar story is now unfolding in Hollywood, where actors have reported that studios have pressured them to give up the rights to their digital portraits. Although the details are somewhat different, presenting repurposed movies and TV series as “microdramas” poses a similar threat to people who work in the business because of the way it excludes them from opportunities like RoseBerry’s partnership with Epis. It is also not clear how and if this new vertical presentation of Neighbors could result in royalty payments to the show’s original cast and crew.
Streamers’ and studios’ interest in vertical content of all kinds has been driven by a desire to regain some of the attention lost on rival platforms like TikTok and YouTube, where microdramas have been able to thrive. For the most part, studios have been leading with verticalized, repurposed clips of pre-existing content, presented in scrollable feeds that are meant to give you a preview of things that can be viewed horizontally. The content in these feeds may be useful for discovery, but like microserialized (read: cut) movies and TV shows, they’re not exactly a new entertainment format that seems worth making a lot of noise about.
Traditional microdramas haven’t even had a chance to live up to all the industry’s expectations, but it seems like companies are already rushing to redefine the format as anything that’s short, dramatic, and vertically oriented. Platforms might be more interested in turning old shows and movies into clip content because it’s less expensive than producing and building an audience for a wholly original microdrama. However, that doesn’t lend credence to the idea that this format can truly “save” Hollywood; If anything, it makes the industry look like it’s trying to cannibalize itself.
