The Backlist Is the New Frontier

Snips signing Banijay Rights and BIG Media to turn existing catalog into vertical microseries is the tell everyone will underplay this week. COL AI Studios makes the same bet from the other direction — take proven IP and push it outward into animation, film, publishing. Both moves share a premise the industry hasn't said out loud: originating new vertical IP is expensive and unreliable, but repurposing IP that's already cleared the audience test is not. Webtoon doing the same with its steamy webcomic catalog confirms the pattern rather than starts it. Three companies, three different entry points, one identical conclusion.

This matters more than another ad-spend chart because it reframes what a "vertical drama company" actually is. It isn't a production shop anymore — it's a licensing arbitrage operation sitting on top of somebody else's back catalog, reformatting films, series and comics into 90-second increments for a phone screen. The MPA-ByteDance MOU on AI video guardrails, thin as it is, exists precisely because this repurposing wave is coming whether rightsholders consent to it or not.

The vertical drama industry's real growth story next year won't be about new hits. It'll be about who owns the pipes for converting old ones.