Microdramas are set to upstage Hollywood's A-list

Skydance

16/10/2026 14:26

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
By Jennifer  Saba
NEW YORK, Oct 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Netflix founder Reed Hastings once ruminated that the streaming service’s true competitor was sleep. The latest cultural craze that has emerged from China poses a different challenge. Microdramas are gaining ground and rivaling Hollywood incumbents for time and attention.
The short episodic vertical videos, each lasting around two minutes, are sweeping the United States. The format is a distant cousin of the soap opera — popular themes include love, money and jealousy — tailor-made for easily distracted smartphone addicts. The series show up on social media networks like TikTok and Instagram and are also available on dedicated apps like ReelShort and DramaBox.  
Viewers are gripped. The series “Found a Homeless Billionaire Husband for Christmas,” racked up more than 400 million views, per research firm Omdia, rivaling the record-breaking 500 million views achieved by Netflix’s “KPop Demon Hunters” in the first six months after its release. YouTube said microdramas surpassed 6.5 billion views on the video platform in the first half of 2026 alone, while time spent watching the shows jumped 50% year-over-year.
They are oddly compelling. Dedicated apps hook viewers with a few free episodes and then present a menu of paid options to watch the rest, ranging from pay-per-view coins to yearly subscriptions. ReelShort's “The Counterattack of the Fat Wife Queen," is schlocky and borderline absurd. Yet after watching the first 10 short episodes, this columnist almost broke out the corporate credit card to access the final 47.
Low expenses add to the appeal for producers. A microdrama series costs somewhere in the ballpark of $300,000, a fraction of the outlay for a regular soap opera or half-hour sitcom. Artificial intelligence further reduces overheads. In the People’s Republic, where short dramas known as duanju took off around 2020, 95% of those released in the first quarter of this year were AI generated, according to analysts at MoffettNathanson. The format has reached such prominence in Tinseltown that the main union representing actors felt compelled to roll out rules and guidelines to protect members working on set.
Previous attempts to develop vertical video struggled. The most high-profile flop was Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s Quibi, which launched in 2020 but failed after burning through almost $2 billion. Yet this time users, conditioned to consume short-form videos by TikTok, may be more willing. Projections for microdrama revenue are still relatively micro: the format is set to bring in $1.5 billion this year, per Omdia. In China, however, it has hit $9 billion in revenue, surpassing the $7 billion spent on cinema tickets. If the same trend holds stateside, microdramas could eventually overtake the almost $9 billion collected by US and Canadian box offices last year.
Such rapid growth would eat into entertainment budgets, squeezing Netflix NFLX.O and other streamers such as Walt Disney DIS.N, which already face a slowdown. Another incumbent, movie studio Skydance SKYD.N, is busy with the challenge of absorbing Warner Bros. Small but mighty microdramas are ready to elbow aside Hollywood's A-list.
     
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CONTEXT NEWS 
YouTube said on September 23 that so-called microdramas surpassed 6.5 billion views in the first half of 2026 and that vertical shorts on TV increased by over 90% year-over-year for the same period.
Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said at an industry conference on September 30 that the streaming service was not growing as fast as he would like.

(Editing by Peter Thal Larsen; Production by Maya Nandhini)
((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on SABA/jennifer.saba@thomsonreuters.com))