Former Showtime president Jana Winograde and former NBCUniversal executive Susan Rovner joined Lloyd Braun to launch aTwist, a production studio and vertical streaming hub built for phone screens. The venture debuted with ten original short-form series crossing horror, comedy, and animation, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Winograde and Rovner spent decades greenlighting prestige television. Now they direct their development muscle toward ninety-second scenes.
Big talent arrived alongside the launch. Kevin Hart brought his company Hartbeat into the mix through a multi-project pact with aTwist. As reported by Deadline, Hartbeat agreed to produce over twenty original vertical microseries for the service. The deal establishes a dedicated Hartbeat hub on the app, featuring adaptations of novels by Blake Karrington in partnership with Upscale Productions. Famous showrunners and comic titans see the same upside: audiences watch serialized fiction on pocket devices, and they want tighter stories.
The ninety-second screen demands the exact same showmanship as prime-time television.
Other heavy hitters skip standalone apps to target social feeds. Mansa Studios, founded by David Oyelowo and Nate Parker, dropped an original slate of premium vertical microdramas on TikTok, per coverage from Variety. Instead of asking viewers to download another player, Mansa inserts feature-grade cinematography right into the algorithm. Meanwhile, proven micro-budget hits keep climbing into traditional formats. Viral Nation and Media Trifecta took Rags 2 Richmond, a twenty-eight-episode breakout vertical drama that already earned a feature film cut, and greenlit an unscripted reality competition about Asian male pageantry. Producers Paul Telner, Kevin Healey, and Sharone Ostrovsky prove that vertical hits build real franchises.
Live-action vertical production remains brutal. App operators face real unit economics, and some pull back. Rohan Nayak, founder of Pocket FM, shuttered video offshoot Pocket TV in June. High shoot costs and uneven viewer retention forced the choice. Pocket FM refocuses on its core engine, generating 200,000 hours of AI-assisted audio series each month. Premium video demands deep pockets, seasoned showrunners, and sharp packaging. The arrivals from network television plan to supply all three.