Films like Backrooms and Obsession Show There’s A Direct Route From Social Video to Hollywood

Jeffrey Katzenberg was right about the big picture. But he forgot that the medium is the message.

Almost six years after the media mogul’s Quibi—a short-form, mobile-only streaming platform—turned a $1.75 billion war chest into one of the most expensive punchlines in entertainment history, a generation of creators, producers, agents, studios, and tech platforms is quietly rebuilding pieces of the platform’s central thesis. As it turns out, Quibi’s collapse wasn’t a verdict against professionally produced vertical videos; it merely meant someone else would build the mobile-first content future that Katzenberg had envisioned.

Over the past 6 years, artists like Curry Barker, Brian Jordan Alvarez, and Hannah Stocking have been teaching themselves a new audiovisual storytelling language on TikTok and Meta’s Reels—one built specifically for mobile audiences with shrinking attention spans, and algorithms that reward immediacy.

Now, after amassing giant followings on social networks, those creators are parlaying their success into starring, showrunning, and directing roles in more traditional corners of Hollywood. Luckily for the people coming up behind them, Barker’s first feature film, Obsession, and Kane Parsons’ directorial debut Backrooms, thoroughly convinced industry forces that the next generation’s Steven Spielberg may emerge from social platforms.

Jeffrey Katzenberg demonstrating Quibi's Turnstyle technology at Sundance in Park City, Utah, January 24, 2020.

But why are audiences and artists gravitating toward content on smaller screens with unconventional aspect ratios? One answer lies in simple ergonomics and smartphone addiction. “Vertical is the natural way to hold your phone,” says Hernan Lopez, founder of Owl and Co. and Wondery, who was the keynote speaker at The Vertical Media Summit held earlier this month in Hollywood. For years, Netflix, Disney+, and their streaming peers have been gaining subscribers while losing time spent on mobile devices. The reason, Lopez argues, is almost embarrassingly obvious: People don’t like turning their phones sideways. They want entertainment designed for the vertical smartphone screens they stare at for hours each day.

The vertical media sector has evolved into something far bigger than icebox challenges, street fights, and lip-sync videos over the last few years. Serialized TikTok series, Instagram comedies, and the soapy “micro dramas” that became a multibillion-dollar phenomenon in China are now emerging as a serious business—and a deep talent pipeline—in the United States. Screen Time, a scripted vertical micro-series produced with Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, drew almost 75 million views in its first week and over 250 million within a month, according to TikTok. The Diamond Rose, produced by Scott Brown, a former creative collaborator of MrBeast, pulled in more than 20 million views in its first 24 hours. For comparison, the 2026 NBA Finals featuring the New York Knicks averaged roughly 20 million viewers in the US per game—making it the highest-watched NBA Finals since Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls won the championship in 1998.