In the past, when Chinese film and television products went overseas, they sent out one production after another. Today, the way of "going to sea" has changed. From movie screens to vertical screens on mobile phones, from content forms to business models, to the AI tools behind the screens, Chinese film and television is entering deeper into the global film and television industry chain.
Vertical screen breaks into Hollywood: The Los Angeles business of Chinese short dramas
One or two minutes of one episode, watch it vertically on your mobile phone, and the plot is constantly reversing. Now in the United States, Chinese micro-short dramas have not only gained a huge audience, but also attracted Hollywood counterparts to actively join the game. From American actors and screenwriters joining the team for filming, to the plans of traditional film and television giants such as Fox and Universal, the overseas expansion of Chinese short dramas is evolving from taking stories abroad to the local implementation of a complete set of production models and commercial methods.
At a filming location in Los Angeles, the United States, the camera was set up vertically, and the crew was rushing to shoot a vertical screen short drama. There is no slow-burning foreshadowing, one or two minutes of one episode, the conflict must be triggered in the first few dozen seconds, and the ending must be stuck in suspense. This narrative rhythm originated from China has brought a new impact to American directors.
American director and screenwriter Tristan McKenzie: Chinese micro-short dramas pay great attention to the key nodes of the plot. You basically only need to present these core contents. When you take that big emotional and story twist, it feels honestly quite refreshing. Traditional American dramas will slowly pave the way for certain plots, but micro-short dramas are different. They tend to have huge reversals in emotions and stories, and they really feel creative freedom.
In order to adapt to the taste of North American audiences, the micro-short dramas overseas are no longer simply translated. An American screenwriter writes, local professional actors star, and the scenes are switched to local scenes. However, the story has changed, but the skeleton has not changed - short duration, fast pace, intensive reversal and retaining suspense. This set of creative logic that has been proven mature in China has been completely retained.
Yang Bohan, head of the short drama production company: For Chinese short dramas to go overseas, some local practitioners in the United States need to bring local stories, because they better understand the needs of local audiences. American film and television practitioners are gradually understanding the form of short plays better. For them, this is a new production model and a new workflow in the film and television industry.
Along with the implementation of the content, there is also a set of closed business loops that subvert the tradition. Unlike American dramas that rely on full-season subscriptions from TV stations or streaming media, micro-short dramas have a shorter production cycle, coupled with second-level data feedback in the background. The creators can make adjustments within a few days to determine which plot segments have attracted viewers and which themes attract traffic. This also provides a large number of young American film and television practitioners with a new stage outside of traditional Hollywood.
American director and screenwriter Tristan McKenzie: In this small-budget model, you can learn a lot and figure out what you really want very quickly.
According to data from market research institutions, the number of monthly active users of micro-short dramas in the United States has skyrocketed from 26 million in 2024 to 66 million in 2025; it is expected to generate approximately US$1.5 billion in revenue in 2026, and this number may be close to US$2 billion next year.
Traditional Hollywood film and television companies have also entered the scene. Among them, Fox Entertainment Company has teamed up with a short drama production company to plan more than 200 vertical screen works in one go. The industrialized production processes and business models developed by China’s micro-short dramas are now being implemented overseas. When the industry puts forward higher requirements for production efficiency and cost control, the intervention of artificial intelligence is driving this wave of overseas expansion to deeper production hinterland.
AI enters the scene: Chinese video tools enter the Hollywood production chain
In the United States, AI is not only responsible for generating scenes and special effects in low-cost short dramas, but has also directly entered the production process of mainstream film and television blockbusters. From "how to tell Chinese stories" to "how to use Chinese AI in Hollywood films", China's film and television overseas is moving from cultural output in front of the screen to industrial-level technological empowerment behind the screen.
If you want to present a realistic explosion behind a character in the picture, traditional film and television post-production requires green screen keying, particle effects rendering and multi-layer synthesis, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. With the help of generative AI, the producer only needs to enter a line of prompt words, and the system can generate multiple versions for people to choose from within tens of seconds.
Short play producer Sun Tianze: If you just connect with AI, you directly enter a command saying, I need to generate an explosion behind this person, and it may give you a version within tens of seconds. Then you say that this thing needs to be adjusted, and it will produce a version in tens of seconds. There may be dozens or even hundreds of versions a day for you to choose from.
Multiple processes can be connected with one click. For micro-short dramas that pursue ultimate efficiency, time and production costs can be reduced immediately.
Short play producer Sun Tianze: AI is cheaper, and it can complete one thing for maybe tens of RMB. Therefore, AI has indeed helped us a lot in the entire production process, not only in terms of process, speed, efficiency, but also in terms of money. It has saved us a lot of steps.
Today, this technology is not only used in low-cost short dramas, but has also penetrated into the core of the mainstream film and television industry. It is reported that 73 of the 850 visual effects shots in the first season of the Amazon Prime Video Service's key drama "King of David" were completed by generative AI, and the key tool used was the AI video model developed by a Chinese company.
However, the implementation of technology does not mean that AI simply replaces real people. From script logic and camera control to the aesthetic judgment of the final version, the core dominance remains in the hands of the creator. For the production team, AI makes it possible to realize the wild ideas that were limited by budget and cycle in the past.
Tristan McKenzie, American director and screenwriter: I think you can create a very engaging story for the audience that breaks the idea that big budgets make good work.
It is reported that in some action micro-short dramas in North America, AI full-process assistance has compressed the production cycle to three to four weeks, and the cost has been controlled within US$60,000. Real actors participate in expression capture and model training, and production staff use instructions to accurately control the screen. Film and television production is shifting from assembly line division of labor to new human-machine collaboration.
Different from the previous emphasis on exporting a single work overseas, the background of this round of changes is that China's independently developed technical tools have begun to be deeply integrated into the global creative ecology. The focus of going overseas is quietly expanding from "stories on the screen" to "the toolbox behind the screen".
Yang Bohan, head of the short drama production company: In the beginning, we simply brought the content abroad. Now we are not only bringing content, we are also bringing new production models and new technologies.
From the commercial model of micro-short dramas taking root to the large-scale Chinese AI video models entering overseas industrial processes, the path for Chinese film and television to go global is undergoing a qualitative leap - in the past, it was about sending out works, and now it is about bringing the methods and technical tools to produce works to the world.
