Charles Band’s Full Moon Features Is Getting In on the “Microdrama” Craze

Will we eventually see vertical short movies featuring Full Moon classics like Puppet Master, Animator, or Ghoulies? It’s certainly possible.

Indie horror veteran Charles Band is teaming with a group of U.S. microdrama’s biggest names to form a vertical video label, Full Moon Artists (FMA) Productions, reports Deadline.

Band’s Full Moon Features will house the microdrama producer, which he will lead alongside vertical entertainment stars Eric Guilmette, Sarah Moliski, Felix Merback, and Rebecca Stoughton.

FMA Productions is planning a slate of microdramas for the likes of ReelShort and other vertical video apps, and alternative horizontal feature versions of each show aimed at platforms such as Prime Video and Tubi.

The first of 12 films from the shingle will go into production this spring in L.A., with subsequent titles filmed in California, Cleveland and Italy.

For those who have no idea what we’re talking about: Microdramas were born in China, where the industry is worth billions of dollars, before a U.S. scene sprung up and is now considered the medium’s second-largest market. The spate of production sparked by its emergence has been buoyed by a young generation of actors who have dedicated themselves to the fast-moving sector. It is now attracting major players and well-known faces from across the industry, and Band is the latest.

Band got into the vertical video space last year with ReelShort thriller Dungeons of Ecstasy, which was shot in Rome and the Italian countryside and starred Guilmette and Merback, who was a co-producer. The release model was the same as what FMA Productions will attempt – first landing on the microdrama platform as a multi-episode series and then as a standard ration film distributed on Amazon, Tubi and the Full Moon Features streaming channel, as well as Blu-ray.

This year, he again teamed with ReelShort for a similar release, Models Vs. Werewolves, which stars Moliski, Stouhgton and Dee Wallace and was shot in L.A..

It looks like we’re still a long way from Puppet Master microdramas.