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EXCLUSIVE: BuzzFeed Studios and vertical video patient MuVpix are going large connected microdrama production.
The brace has entered into a business to nutrient much than 100 titles complete nan adjacent 2 years and motorboat them pinch a cross-platform distribution strategy. First up connected nan slate will beryllium Romeo & Juliet, Reimagined, nan retelling of nan Shakespeare classical that we told you astir past month.
U.S.-based MuVpix launched successful March arsenic nan vertical intermezo level of BlackForge Distribution pinch 2 original shows, Whispervale and Swipe Left, and added Romeo & Juliet, Reimagined, which stars Gabrielle Faith Brown, Clayton Carrozza and Yolanthe Cabu, successful June.
The scheme is to usage MuVpix’s platform, wider distribution capabilities and tech and mesh them pinch BuzzFeed Studios’ vertical storytelling operations, accumulation infrastructure, trading limb and taste reach.
They will co-create original IP, reimagined classics, and “shoppable” formats built “natively for TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, FAST/CTV platforms and nan muVpix Originals platform.”
Richard Alan Reid, President of BuzzFeed Studios, will oversee nan partnership, alongside BuzzFeed executive producers Mike Aho and Dan Katt and muVpix’s Head of Creative Content, Erik Heintz, pinch Ben Asaf Jehoshua and Harris Levinson arsenic co-executive producers.
Romeo & Juliet, Reimagined, nan first show from nan partnership, will motorboat successful August. Carrozza and Brown will play Romeo and Juliet, respectively. The bid transplants nan iconic humor feud betwixt nan Montagues and Capulets into nan criminal underworld of modern-day Los Angeles. As we reported, it was changeable successful some horizontal and vertical formats. Further formed includes Mustafa Speaks and Jordan Barrett.
It comes from Latino filmmakers Max Decker and Dario Herrera, who co-wrote nan story. Decker directs, while Herrera serves arsenic imaginative director. BlackForge Distribution, which owns muVpix, is attached arsenic nan accumulation institution and co-financier alongside executive producers Speaks from Blue Meridian Studios and Liz Fuller of ST8RM.
“Through our business pinch BuzzFeed Studios, we are reaching moreover broader audiences, while raising nan barroom successful productivity and accumulation quality,” said John Lewis, laminitis of muVpix. “This business allows america to bring premium storytelling to a format that audiences are already showing up for successful monolithic numbers, and to do it astatine a standard and value level nan abstraction hasn’t seen before.”
For BuzzFeed Studios, nan MuVpix pact comes astir 2 months aft Byron Allen closed a deal to get its parent, integer publishing pioneer BuzzFeed. Part of Allen’s scheme is to divided BuzzFeed Studios and food-focused integer marque Tasty into independent entities, though they will stay wholly-owned subsidiaries of nan main company.
BuzzFeed Studios is presently attached to nan likes of Natalie Morales movie The Girlfriend, holiday romcom The Twelve Dates of Christmas and Whodunnit, a romcom starring nan likes of Jack Whitehall and Lizzie Broadway. This is among its biggest microdrama plays to date.
“BuzzFeed Studios is uniquely positioned successful this business arsenic a distributor, a accumulation services company, and a trading and PR powerhouse, pinch an expansive societal media reach,” added Aho from BuzzFeed Studios. “BuzzFeed Studios has ever been astatine nan forefront of contented and culture, and successful this caller medium, BuzzFeed Studios is starring nan way.”
