Hartbeat, Fox Entertainment Strike Vertical Series Deal — SkimNews
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- Hartbeat signed a vertical series deal with Fox Entertainment Studios, which gains first-look rights to develop feature films and TV series from vertical content under subsidiary brands Codeblack, Essence, and Revolt.
- The three subsidiary brands carry a combined social following exceeding 20 million, and Hartbeat vertical series will launch on Holywater Tech's My Drama platform before Fox Entertainment Global handles worldwide distribution.
- Codeblack partnered with Holywater Tech — operator of vertical video platform My Drama — for a dedicated branded channel, with 25 live-action titles already in production spanning dramas, thrillers, and faith-based content.
- Hannah Pillemer, Fox Entertainment Studios' head of scripted, said the deal lets the studio "identify bold ideas in the vertical space" and give stories "a path to grow into film and television."
- Jeff Clanagan, Codeblack founder and Hartbeat's President and CDO, framed vertical as the starting point: "Vertical is where those stories start, not where they stop."
- Hartbeat already held a first-look deal with Fox Corp.-owned Tubi from last year covering four creator-driven films, including the supernatural feature "Sundown" written, directed by and starring Kinigra Deon.
Why it matters: The deal gives Fox Entertainment Studios a built-in audience-testing mechanism through three Black-targeted brands with a combined 20-million-plus social following, letting the studio gauge story appeal in cheap-to-produce vertical format before committing budgets to traditional film and TV adaptations — an audience-first IP pipeline Hartbeat's Clanagan explicitly framed as "where those stories start, not where they stop."
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