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▙ ▙ Beauty brands go vertical, India tightens controls, COL expands global licensing, queer microdramas break out, and the U.K. press calls it an industry Week of Dec. 13–19, 2025 Join Real Reel ⁙ Beauty goes vertical: Maybelline commissions a holiday micro-drama on ReelShort. Maybelline New York rolled out a branded
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⚈ ⚈ ReelShort’s rare male-led action drama delivers a strong opening built on flight fantasy and physical spectacle, but struggles to sustain credibility as its conflicts shift toward exaggerated interpersonal clashes. Join Real Reel In a content ecosystem largely dominated by female-skewing romance and relationship dramas, ReelShort’s Callsign: Legacy stands
Insights.
In vertical drama, audiences are not buying “genres”. They are buying very specific emotional experiences, on demand, on a small screen. In our earlier pieces, we called the basic loop: * Shock — something breaks the normal pattern * Hurt — a character pays an emotional price * Release — the story gives you a payoff
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▙ ▙ Brand money locks in, broadcasters follow, fans vote with emotion — vertical microdrama moves from experiment to system. Week of Dec. 5–12, 2025 Join Real Reel P&G Studios, dentsu Entertainment and Native set a 50-episode “microsoap,” with rollout details locked. A Dec. 10 announcement confirms The Golden Pear
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▙ ▙ In Hollywood, major transitions often begin not with new formats, but with the rearrangement of old power. Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Join Real Reel Discovery is one of those structural moments. The headlines focus on valuation and ownership. The deeper impact touches content economics, attention dynamics, capital allocation
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⚈ ⚈ ReelShort’s campus-mafia romance delivers high emotional velocity, until product placement derails the experience. Once Upon A Breakup has quickly climbed the platform’s internal charts, positioned as a flagship YA-meets-mafia title in the app’s romance catalog. Join Real Reel The premise is engineered for vertical storytelling: Mia, blindsided
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Week of Nov. 29–Dec. 6, 2025 ReelShort signs a multi-year pact with AR Asia Productions to fast-track APAC expansion ContentAsia reports that the U.S. micro-drama platform has inked a multi-year global partnership with Hong Kong–based AR Asia Productions aimed at accelerating distribution and production across Asia-Pacific. The
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Engine, Wall, Witness, Nuke , on an actual phone screen If you skim the current winners’ circle: How to Tame a Silver Fox, Pregnant with Billionaire’s Twins, Love Begins, Girls Help Girls: Divorce or Die, The Divorced Billionaire Heiress, Miss You After Goodbye… it’s not hard to see the
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⚈ ⚈ A Gender-Flipped Fever Dream You Can’t Look Away From Apparently you all enjoyed my last meltdown, so yes, Amy is back. Join Real Reel Today we’re reviewing NetShort’s charting title, Goodbye My Tempting Wife. On paper it looks like a switch-up: a male protagonist, a corporate backdrop,
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Week of Nov. 21–28, 2025 Access Entertainment makes its interest explicit At the British Screen Forum last week, Access Entertainment chief Danny Cohen said the company is “looking at” micro dramas, adding there are already “one or two” companies making real money in the format. The “Zone of Interest”
Insights.
Build vertical-era characters that move the loop: clear jobs, readable tags, fast wants, 10-ep micro-arcs, and zero pain-sponges. Craft that converts.
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FlareFlow used the MIP Cancun main room to put numbers on the board. The app launched in April and, by the company’s account, posted about $500,000 in its first month. Today it says its shows reach 177 countries with 11+ languages at launch, dubs and subs are a
