BuzzFeed Studios has entered a partnership with vertical-drama studio muVpix to produce more than 100 microdrama titles over the next two years, the companies announced. The slate will launch across TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, FAST and CTV platforms, and muVpix’s own Originals app.

The deal pairs muVpix’s platform, distribution network and production technology with BuzzFeed Studios’ vertical storytelling operations, production infrastructure and marketing reach. The two companies plan to co-create original IP, adaptations of existing properties, and shoppable formats built natively for short-form platforms.

The partnership’s first release, “Romeo & Juliet, Reimagined,” is set for an August launch. The series relocates the Montague-Capulet feud to the criminal underworld of present-day Los Angeles and was shot in both horizontal and vertical formats. Clayton Carrozza and Gabrielle Faith Brown star as Romeo and Juliet, with Yolanthe Cabau, Mustafa Speaks and Jordan Barrett rounding out the cast. Max Decker and Dario Herrera co-wrote the story, with Decker directing and Herrera serving as creative director. BlackForge Distribution, muVpix’s parent company, is attached as production company and co-financier alongside executive producers Speaks, of Blue Meridian Studios, and Liz Fuller, of ST8RM.

Beyond the Shakespeare adaptation, the companies plan titles shooting in Mexico City, Canada and India, along with a project produced inside BuzzFeed Studios’ Tasty kitchen that would extend the Tasty brand into microdrama format for the first time.

Richard Alan Reid, President of BuzzFeed Studios, will oversee the partnership. BuzzFeed Executive Producers Mike Aho and Dan Katt and muVpix Head of Creative Content Erik Heintz will also lead the collaboration, with Ben Asaf Jehoshua and Harris Levinson serving as Co-Executive Producers.

“Through our partnership with BuzzFeed Studios, we are reaching even broader audiences, while raising the bar in creativity and production quality,” said John Lewis, founder of muVpix. “This partnership allows us to bring premium storytelling to a format that audiences are already showing up for in massive numbers, and to do it at a scale and quality level the space hasn’t seen before.”

“BuzzFeed Studios is uniquely positioned in this partnership as a distributor, a production services company, and a marketing and PR powerhouse, with an expansive social media reach,” said Aho.

The agreement marks one of BuzzFeed Studios’ largest microdrama commitments to date and arrives roughly two months after Byron Allen closed a deal to acquire BuzzFeed and become its CEO. Allen has said he plans to spin BuzzFeed Studios and food-focused digital brand Tasty into independent entities, though both will remain wholly owned subsidiaries of the parent company. MuVpix, for its part, launched in March with two original titles, “Whispervale” and “Swipe Left,” before adding “Romeo & Juliet, Reimagined” to its slate in June.

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