Famous actors arriving in the duanju no longer just bring romance
On September 22, vertTV released Finding Hope , a small-town romance. The studio is advertising comedy, thriller, and crime drama. In the United States, Europe, and China, well-known actors transitioning to vertical television are also bringing other genres to the table. A study by Holywater offers a clue: on its MyDrama app, the proportion of male viewers jumped from 1.1% to 30.3% in seven quarters.
Finding Hope, the romance we've been waiting for
vertTV is an American platform for vertical micro-series, presented to the press on July 22, 2026, by three television film producers with experience at Netflix and Hallmark. Finding Hope reunites Jodie Sweetin , John Brotherton , and Marla Sokoloff , three actors from Fuller House , the sequel to Full House that aired on Netflix from 2016 to 2020. Also featured is Richard Karn , who played Al Borland in Home Improvement (the only one on set who actually knew how to use tools).
A doctor returns to her small town to save her ailing father's practice and reconnects with a former love. Marla Sokoloff wrote, directed, and stars in it. The vertTV press release categorizes it as a "small-town romantic drama." This is what one expects from a TV movie studio, and it's what they've done so far: before this, vertTV released Lone Star Hearts , starring Josh Henderson , the John Ross Ewing of the 2012 Dallas , a " soapy romance " combined with a corporate thriller, and then Call of Duty and Love , an " action-romance ."
Three other genres from the same publisher
The press release of August 18th describes the sequel in the studio's own words. Chonda , on October 13th, is a "warm, faith-adjacent, fish-out-of-water comedy" starring Chonda Pierce , an American comedian whose audience is primarily in Southern churches. "Faith-adjacent" doesn't have a direct French translation that sounds like a contractual clause. Bad Blood , scheduled for October 27th and aimed at Generation Z, is a "dark academia supernatural thriller" featuring Barbara Crampton , whom horror fans have known since Re-Animator in 1985. Wicked Wives , expected in January, is a "glamorous, high-stakes ensemble murder-mystery" produced by and starring Vivica A. Fox , seen in Independence Day and Kill Bill .
None of the three contain the word romance, from a publisher founded by producers of television romances.
In the United States, from thrillers to musicals
vertTV is not an isolated case. Issa Rae , creator of Insecure for HBO, produced Screen Time for TikTok and PineDrama, released on April 29. During a foursome, phones are hacked and their secrets are displayed on the television, according to Hoorae . The series falls into the thriller genre.
Jesse Tyler Ferguson , of eleven seasons on Modern Family fame , has teamed up with Justin Mikita for the aTwist platform to create a micro-series that Variety describes as a musical comedy. It's called Theater Kids vs. Zombies .
Kenan Thompson , of Saturday Night Live fame, is developing a dark-humor kidnapping thriller with his production company for 100 ZEROS, a Google and Range Media Partners initiative. Dee Wallace , the mother from E.T. and star of Cujo , has returned to what she knows best: Models vs. Werewolves , a Charles Band horror film cut for ReelShort. Streaming Radar reported in April on Hollywood's shift towards vertical streaming ; genres have followed suit.
Not everyone is abandoning romance. Eric Roberts , an Oscar nominee for Runaway Train , appears in a LoveHit adaptation of Jane Eyre and stars in Billionaires' Broken Vow , a rom-com that will be screened in October at the Alza festival, the first in the United States dedicated to micro-dramas. A jilted bride wakes up married to a mysterious billionaire: the formula remains unchanged.
In Europe, two entry points through opposite gates.
In the UK, the entry point is a production company. Lime Pictures has been producing Hollyoaks since 1995, a Channel 4 soap opera that expanded to three episodes per week in 2024. On September 15th, the company released its first vertical series , Revenge Is a Dish , consisting of 57 episodes, available on the EPIS app. The cast comes from the soap opera: Tamara Wall from Hollyoaks , and Luke Delaney, formerly of Coronation Street and Emmerdale . The press release from Banijay , Lime's parent company, describes it as a "romantic thriller" and a "revenge romance." Romance shares the spotlight with revenge, and it's revenge that takes center stage.
In Germany, it's being done by an actor. Ben Blaskovic is known to audiences of Die Rosenheim-Cops and Rote Rosen , notes DWDL . He created, co-wrote, and starred in YES!, 60 episodes filmed from August 31 to September 4 in Schliersee, Bavaria, in a hotel that remained open during filming. The guest reviews from that week must be worth checking out. The producer doesn't mention romance: " Drama trifft Mystery ," drama meets mystery.
In China, the sequence began in 2024
Li Ruotong , known to Western audiences as Carman Lee, directed " Afternoon Roses " in 2024. The series follows a middle-aged woman returning to the workforce, and its media outlets categorize it as a "female empowerment story." The series had 150 million views on Douyin by September 2024 and then aired in February 2025 on Shanghai-based Dragon TV, ranking third in its time slot on its premiere night.
In 2025, Li Ruotong summed it up with a laugh: "59 is just the right age to launch a new venture." It was her first executive production, and its ratings, she said , are "the source of courage" for her future attempts. Zhao Cong, one of the general producers , pointed out the age difference in the business press : on Douyin, the audience is around 20 years old, while on television, it's over 40.
In 2026 , the veterans arrive, each with their own style. Liu Xiaoqing , 75, filmed "The Empress Wu Zetian," an epic about Empress Wu Zetian, in Hengdian, the studio city in Zhejiang, in 9 to 10 days according to the Chinese press , for 82 episodes released online on May 13. Nine days for an empress.
On July 23, Hongguo (ByteDance's duanju app) and Douyin released "无名者之光" (A New Hopeful Spy), a spy series set in the Republic of China. Tang Guoqiang , 74, a familiar face in Chinese historical cinema , stars alongside two rising stars, Liu Xiaoxu and Lan Lan. The Beijing Broadcasting Office has classified it as a "revolutionary genre. " Zhu Shimao , 72, stars in "黑色焰火" (A New Hopeful Spy), an urban crime drama on Hongguo.
Jet Li has chosen the genre that made him famous. On July 5, Hongguo released "King of the Woods," a wuxia duanju (martial arts tale), in which he plays a reclusive master who guides the hero. This is his second vertical series after "King of the Woods," and he filmed it without pay, according to Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao . His explanation is simple: "Stage size doesn't matter."
At My Drama, the proportion of men increased from 1.1% to 30.3%.
What Zhao Cong saw between two Chinese screens, a study has measured on a Western app. On July 23, the Ukrainian company Holywater and the firm Owl & Co published a study on the audience for vertical series , based on data from MyDrama and a survey conducted in May with 2,737 of its users.
The report, cited by Deadline , starts with the demographics circulating in 2024: women aged 35 to 54 watching TV in the evenings. In the second quarter of 2024, men represented 1.1% of MyDrama's monthly active users. Seven quarters later, they accounted for 30.3%. This figure pertains to that single app, whose audience remains predominantly female.
The survey also reveals what respondents watch: 74% romance, 64.5% drama, and 54% comedy. This sample of volunteers overrepresents women; therefore, it does not represent all viewers. The report considers horror and thrillers to be underrepresented. It summarizes: "Romance is the spine of the audience — but the taste profile is broader than one genre." Romance holds the audience's attention, and their tastes extend beyond a single genre.
An independent study supports this finding. On September 3rd, Forrester Research published the results of a survey conducted in June among online-using American adults: an equal number of men and women reported watching micro-dramas, either regularly or occasionally. Beyond romance, viewers cited comedy, crime dramas, action, thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, and horror.
What the genre of a title says about its target audience
vertTV writes that Bad Blood targets Generation Z. Chonda relies on a comedian with a following in Southern churches. Afternoon Roses found two audiences, one around 20 years old, the other over 40.
One hypothesis emerges: the star doesn't bring horror, comedy, or espionage into the vertical genre. The audience changes, the catalog expands with it, and well-known actors arrive with this shift.
On August 6, director Jia Zhangke , winner of the Golden Lion at Venice in 2006 for Still Life , posted a text on Weibo . In it, he says he is currently watching Still Life and writes that a two-hour story or a two-minute story is a matter of form, not lineage. He then adds: “When the screen goes vertical, the creator doesn’t shrink. If two minutes move you, they’ve moved you. If two hours haven’t moved you, you can’t ask for an extension.”
He ends his message by asking for recommendations for good duanju.
Ludovic Bostral, Streaming Radar
