Vertical Drama Weekly: Access circles the space; agencies spin up vertical rosters; India says “here to stay”...
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” financier kicking the tires matters because it signals prestige film/TV capital is assessing micro dramas as an investable business unit, not a passing novelty; no targets or timelines were disclosed.
Max Goldbart
Agency infrastructure arrives: Eris formalizes a Vertical Division
Eris Talent Agency has expanded its Vertical/Micro-Drama representation, after formalizing the division last year with three dedicated agents and a roster of ~75 “vertical actors.” The move pulls day-rate, short-run phone-native series into a mainstream agency workflow and is another brick in the wall showing micro dramas have repeatable, year-round casting needs. (Eris did not release a title slate.)
Denise Petski
India’s Goa Film Bazaar: “Micro dramas are here to stay.”
On the panel “The Micro Drama Economy: One of the Fastest-Growing Content Categories Worldwide,” speakers including Vijay Koshy (TVF), Dennis Ruh and Tarun Sawhney (ShortsTV) agreed the category is durable and expanding into European sub-genres. Practical numbers surfaced on stage: a common season budget around $50k–$60k, and guidance that writing must land a cliffhanger every ~2 minutes to convert. The takeaway: South Asia is framing micro dramas as a standing market, not a pilot program.
Davide Abbatescianni
MIP Cancun: micro dramas move into the main room.
MIP Cancun ran a main-theater session, “Micro Drama, Mega Audience,” moderated by Elizabeth Bowen-Tombari (TV Latina) with Can Okan (Inter Medya), JC Acosta (The Mediapro Studio U.S. & Canada) and Shawn Wu (FlareFlow/COL Group). The official program and trades frame the brief the same way: scope, partnerships, monetization models and international rollout, a buyers’ conversation, not show-and-tell. The session was staged in the Cancun Theater on Wednesday, Nov. 19.
Wider entertainment context
Warner Bros. Discovery has asked bidders to submit sweetened second-round offers by Monday, Dec. 1, after fielding initial non-binding proposals; reports cite multiple potential suitors as consolidation chatter heats up. On the box-office dial, Universal’s “Wicked: For Good” delivered an estimated $150M domestic / $226M global opening over the weekend, setting a new high-water mark for a Broadway adaptation and buoying holiday comps with a female-skewing turnout. Both storylines, deal-heat and family-friendly tentpoles, feed into budget and windowing decisions you’ll feel downstream. ⇲
