Sarah Snook, GOT Stars' Shows Recut As Vertical Microdramas — SkimNews
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- Snips is recutting five series — ABC's 'The Beautiful Lie' (Snook), Sky's 'Two Weeks to Live' (Williams) and 'Domina' (Cunningham), plus BBC's 'Prisoners' Wives' (Glen) and 'Gunpowder' (Harington) — into episodes running 45 seconds to two minutes in 9:16 vertical format.
- Sarah Snook headlines the lineup with her pre-'Succession' role as a retired tennis champion in the 2017 Australian reimagining of Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina,' while Kit Harington appears in the 2017 BBC/HBO miniseries about the real-life Robert Catesby — a character Harington is descended from.
- Maisie Williams, Liam Cunningham, Iain Glen and Harington all cut their teeth on 'Game of Thrones,' with Williams starring as Arya Stark, Cunningham as Davos Seaworth, Glen in a supporting role, and Harington as Jon Snow across that HBO series.
- Snips co-founder and CEO Or Ben Shimon framed the move around shifting viewing habits, arguing 'good shows are like music — they just need to be on the most modern format,' distinguishing the platform from competitors that produce originals.
- The platform is offering rights owners a revenue-share model tied to performance rather than the standard flat license fee, which Shimon said gives cast members a direct financial stake in promoting the recut versions to their fan bases.
- Shimon is scheduled to attend MIPCOM Cannes next week to meet with sellers and content owners about acquiring additional titles for adaptation.
Why it matters: Five headline-grabbing names from prestige TV are lending their existing back catalogs to a vertical-format startup that distinguishes itself by repurposing rather than commissioning — a bet that rights holders and actors themselves will favor a performance-linked revenue share over flat licensing fees in a microdrama market that has so far run mostly on originals.
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