EXCLUSIVE: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice producer Tommy Harper, an exec producer on the first two seasons of Wednesday, has lofty ambitions for fledgling microdrama platform VeYou.

“We want to become the HBO of vertical,” he tells Deadline of the platform he launched in April.“The vertical microdrama business is a blank slate,” he expounds. “Wide open. This is Spotify in 2008. Everybody’s scrambling to figure out their position. Studios, media companies, platforms, all of them. Nobody owns this yet. What I see is the open road. Who creates the water cooler moment? Who builds the brand people are actually loyal to? That’s the whole game right now.”

Harper, the former Bad Robot COO whose credits as an exec producer also include Top Gun: Maverick, Willow, Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens and Star Trek Beyond, is a Hollywood veteran who worked his way up on a string of studio movies in the 90’s and 2000s.

VeYou’s lead investor is S32, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm led by Google Ventures founder Bill Maris. The company is expected to integrate AI across development, packaging and distribution, building a proprietary data layer around audience behavior. It’s also using the tech for AI-powered visual effects. Budgets will reportedly range from $100,000 to $250,000 per series.

Harper doesn’t see the vertical space as a passing fad: “People think this is a narrow genre. I see it as TV in your pocket with a global passport. Every person on the planet has a phone. Time is the most limited resource people have. They want to step away for five minutes and actually feel something — not scroll, not graze, but get completely pulled into a story. That’s TikTok in narrative premium form.”

“Netflix isn’t built for five minutes,” he contends. “VeYou is. You open the app, you’re in your show, you’re completely lost in it, and then you’re back in your life.”

“We want to become the HBO of vertical. What that means to us is immersion — giving the audience something they can dive all the way into. It starts with story. Story is king. It always has been. If we can deliver that in five-minute chapters, build IP people are loyal to, create the water cooler moments, and make VeYou the app that feels like yours, the place where stories are found, then we’ve succeeded.”

VeYou recently acquired a vertical biopic about Elon Musk as it builds its shortform library. Its latest production, we can reveal, is a World Cup and Heated Rivalry inspired soccer romance called Rival Hearts, which is debuting this month. VeYou is teaming on the microdrama with Rivr Films, the scripted vertical drama division of Rivr Media (Dash Of Fire), the unscripted specialist owned by Cleveland Browns owner Dee Haslam.

Described as “a high-stakes love triangle set inside the cutthroat world of pro soccer”, the series will star vertical-drama breakout Nicole Mattox and series creator-star Antonio Rosello. Mattox broke out as Caroline in the vertical drama Breaking the Ice.

The synopsis reads: “When soccer’s golden boy Leo Vale (Sam Myerson) shocks the world by abandoning Vanguard United for bitter rivals Kingsport, ambitious young reporter Maya Cruz (Nicole Mattox) becomes obsessed with the truth behind the transfer. Her investigation pulls her straight into the orbit of Nico Rojas (Antonio Rosello), Vanguard’s volatile new striker–a gifted underdog with a dangerous past tied to Leo and the club’s powerful owner.

“As sparks fly on and off the field, Maya finds herself caught between two rivals. The media feeds on the spectacle. League executives exploit it. What begins as a messy, headline-making love triangle,  curdles into something far darker — when Nico collapses after being drugged at a high-profile gala, Maya realizes the rivalry tearing their careers apart may also be putting their lives at risk.”

Rival Hearts is directed by Michael Reich and was shot on location in Knoxville. Lori Stryer, CEO and owner of RIVR Media, serves as executive producer.

VeYou is currently available in the U.S., UK, Europe, Latin America and the MENA region.

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