episodes

Netflix entrusted him with more than 70 million for a series. He came with zero episodes and a luxury mattress bill of $638,000

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Carl Rinsch, director of the semi-unknown Keanu Reeves film ’47 Ronin’ has been convicted of defrauding $11 million to Netflix. For the production of a science fiction series that was never made… nor was it planned to be made. Electronic fraud, money laundering and illegal transactions are the charges for this ingenious scoundrel who dared to tease one of the giants modern audiovisual corporations. What happened. The ‘White Horse’ project, later renamed ‘Conquest’, started in 2018 as an ambitious science fiction series about an artificial humanoid species that rebels against its creators. Netflix beat out Amazon, Apple and HBO in a bidding war for the rights to the series, disbursing more than 61 million dollars and granting Rinsch final creative control. 44 million dollars later and after filming in Uruguay, Brazil and Hungary, there was nothing on Mr. Netflix’s table. Crazy investments. In March 2020, as the pandemic spread, Rinsch requested an additional 11 million to, supposedly, complete the series. For some reason, Netflix agreed: Rinsch transferred the funds directly to personal accounts and speculated with stock options for Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company that wanted to end COVID-19 (and COVID finished with her), losing approximately half of the capital in weeks. He later invested in Dogecointurning 4 million into 27. With the profits he unleashed a consumerist hurricane that resulted in five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari worth 2.4 million dollars, two Hästens mattresses handcrafted in Sweden valued at 638,000 dollars, Swiss watches worth 387,000 and antique furniture valued at 3.3 million. Netflix canceled the project in 2021 after receiving only some promotional fragments of the hypothetical series. The sentence. In an unusual strategy, Rinsch chose to testify in his own defensemaintaining that the 11 million constituted a legitimate reimbursement for own capital invested in the project, and that the material already shot served as a negotiation tool to secure a second season that Netflix would never formally authorize. The prosecution presented bank statements showing direct transfers from the production budget to Rinsch’s personal accounts. Why did it happen? To understand this series of misfortunes for Netflix’s pocket, we must contextualize when it occurred: between 2018 and 2020, Netflix was at the center of a kind of streaming “gold rush”, with spending on content that reached $17.3 billion in 2020. The platform then accumulated 45% of global spending on streaming content since 2010, doubling the investment of your closest competitorAmazon Prime Video. The war for creative talent intensified with the launch of Disney+ in November 2019, followed by HBO Max, Apple TV+ and Peacock. Those were the times when, seeking to create a consistent catalog, Netflix prioritized quantity over quality. In this context, Netflix gave Rinsch that final cut for fear of losing the project to rivals. Other frauds. Rinsch is not an isolated case in an industry increasingly vulnerable to fraud. David Ozer, producer with credentials at Starz Media and Sony Pictures Television, serves sentence after diverting more than $200,000 from the ‘Safehaven’ budget. More recently, in August 2025, David Raymond Brown was accused of orchestrating a Ponzi scheme for 12 million dollars: the producer created a fictitious company that issued invoices for non-existent or already paid services and falsified his profile on IMDb to attract more investors. Header | Dima Solomin in Unsplash

One-minute episodes, crazy plots and millions of views: welcome to the age of l

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It was clear that with the inability to maintain attention for too long in a single point, a phenomenon like that of the microdramasfictions in ultra-brief pills with continuous twists and suspense situations, would end up triumphing. Now, after sweeping Asia, they reach the United States and Europe. And they are willing to turn the durations of fictions upside down in streaming. What are they? An audiovisual format that consists of mini-soap operas or short series designed for consumption on mobile devices. Generally, each episode lasts between 60 and 90 seconds, although it can reach up to ten, and the series have between 20 and 100 episodes, accumulating a total duration similar to a feature film. This accelerated narrative is filmed in vertical format, and structured to hook the viewer with shocking hooks in the first seconds, conflicts that evolve quickly and cliffhangers that invite you to watch the next episode without interruptions. Hurry, hurry. Production is ultra-fast and low-cost, with seasons that can be recorded in less than two weeks, allowing for great proliferation of titles. Narratively, microdramas rely on highly addictive stories, inherited from soap operas, with recurring themes such as secret romances with billionaires, revenge, marriages of convenience, even forays into romance and delirious vampire romances… and all condensed with frequent emotional rewards and very little expenditure on sets, editing, soundtrack and technical displays. In Xataka The new fever in China is mobile series with one-minute episodes. And they prepare their landing outside Asia Where was he born? This format originated in China, where they are known as wei duan ju either duanjudriven by the massive emergence into the market of smartphones and the rise of short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishouespecially during the pandemic. Since then, the format has expanded globally, adapting to the audiovisual consumption habits of generation Z and millennials, who prefer short, vertical content for quick consumption on social networks. Where to see them. The main platforms to watch microdramas are YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. According to a study by Ampere Analysis, YouTube It is the leading platform, with 44% of microdrama viewers consuming this content there, where creators monetize directly. TikTok and Instagram are often used to promote them with teasers and teasers that direct users to paid apps like DramaBox, ReelShort either CandyJarTVwhere they can watch the complete series, often under a freemium model (free initial episodes and payment to continue). In these there is already an abundance of non-Asian series: a look at ReelShort allows us to understand the appeal of these products, openly oriented towards the female audience, and with categories that do not hide an exploitative point, almost an emotional fetish: ‘Hidden Identity’, ‘Taboo Relationship’, ‘Babies and Pregnancies’, ‘Love at First Sight’, ‘Vampires and Werewolves’, and of course an immense remnant of products from Asia. And now, in the United States. Alan Mruvka, founder of E! Entertainment Television, plans to launch Verza TVthe first American platform dedicated exclusively to microdramas, which is expected to arrive in mid-November 2025. This pioneering initiative will follow a financing model similar to that common in China: users can watch up to five free episodes of any title, and to access the rest they must pay $4.99. Verza TV’s catalog will include dramas inspired by TikTok trends, reality shows in micro format, interviews and information about celebrities (something Mruvka knows a lot about thanks to his experience with E! Entertainment) and new microdramas based on those that have been successful in Asia. The figures. The global microdrama market is estimated to reach 2025 a projected value of $11 billiona figure that almost doubles the income of FAST channels (free, linear and with ads), which shows the rapid growth of the format. China dominates this market overwhelmingly, contributing close to 83% of global income thanks to its massive domestic production and consumption. A juicy business, quick and easy to produce, and which may soon find a new audience eager for strong and, above all, fast emotions. Photo of Becca Tapert in Unsplash In Xataka | The great Chinese revolution of recent decades is not technological or economic: it is that of Christianity (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news One-minute episodes, crazy plots and millions of views: welcome to the age of l was originally published in Xataka by John Tones .

It is the best series of ‘Star Wars’, and in the face of its second season, Disney has uploaded its first episodes free of free

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It is possibly the best that will give us’Star Wars‘In 2025 (and beyond, possibly), so it has all the meaning that Disney is taking care of this premiere to the extreme of promoting it with a few free episodes. Specifically the first three of the initial season of ‘Andor‘, that You can enjoy free on YouTube (Yes, in original version with subtitles only in English). This arrival has coincided with the premiere of the series in Hulu in the United States, something that does not affect us in Europe but demonstrates that Disney knows what is brought between hands. ‘Andor’ is a series acclaimed by criticism and public, and that has been celebrated to recover the little solemn style and with a mixture of genres (Here, a very curious mixture of prison leaks and robbery film) that has characterized the best moments of the franchise since the late seventies. A gift that helps us to refresh the memory with the history of this rebel to her, set about five years before what we saw in ‘Rogue One’, that is, we are in the early days of that rebel alliance that we would see in the first trilogy of Star Wars, with a series of events that will lead to the theft of the plans of the Death Star. Andor is a thief who will end up becoming a spy and, finally, into a key piece to trigger the rebel movement against the empire. Without a doubt, what makes ‘Andor’ one of the key series of ‘Star Wars’ is introduce ourselves to a series of characters with many gray nuances: Neither heroes nor villains, many believe in the rebel movement, others are ready for their own interests, and we will see how their behaviors and ideals evolve realistically. A characteristic that will undoubtedly remain in the expected second (and last) season of the series, which has already made history within the franchise. Header | Disney In Xataka | Kathleen Kennedy seeks substitute in the front of Lucasfilm: it is the sign that ‘Star Wars’ is going through the greatest bump in its history

If ‘the snow girl’ has left you wanting, you can recover this 6 -episodes miniseries in Netflix with a similar argument

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The second season of ‘The snow girl’ has become one of Netflix’s recent successes. If you have already finished with it and look for similar series, it is possible that this co -production between the United States and Germany that premiered in 2023 (curiously, very close in time to the first season of ‘The snow girl’) You are interested in its similarities with the adaptation of Javier Castillo’s novel. It’s about ‘my sweet girl’, It is also in Netflixand shows us a woman who has a curious relationship with her two children, with whom she lives retained under conditions of great security. His routine is very similar day to day and they have an order that must be fulfilled under any concept: to follow all the orders of a man who sometimes enters his room. One day, the mother manages to escape and has a car accident in the flight. In the hospital he will meet his parents, who have been looking for her for more than a decade. As you can see, a series full of turns and that is told from the perspective of the injured and semi -amnesic mother, the girl who knows endless secrets of her past life and, of course, the couple of police officers investigating the case. I inevitably remember films like ‘The Room’ and ‘Lost’that also handle issues related to disappearances for a long time and kidnappings that completely disconnect the victims of their families. If you still have any questions, a couple more data: on the one hand, it has a 100% critical score sweet In Rottren Tomatoeswhich undoubtedly makes it a very attractive proposal. In addition, it only extends by six episodes, so it is perfect for a high intensity suspense discharge that can be practically consumed of a sitting. Header | Netflix In Xataka | Only five episodes has needed this miniseries of suspense to permit to the most watched of Netflix

The new fever in China is mobile series with one-minute episodes. And they prepare their landing outside Asia

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Who was going to tell us that Quibithat app that around here we welcomed with joy and which presented series divided into short chapters designed to be consumed vertically or horizontally but always operated from the mobile phone, had been visionary. That Jeffrey Katzenberg invention ended up being a fiasco and a waste of money, but perhaps what really happened to him is that he arrived too soon. Or perhaps that can be inferred from the latest fad in the Chinese market that may end up leaving the Asian market soon: microdramas. What does it consist of? These are small fictions, often with romantic content (but, also in Korean style, sometimes with fantastic elements such as vampires in love or time travel), created for mobile consumption (that is, in vertical format) on platforms. that facilitate quick passage from one episode to another, such as TikTok or YouTube (but also in others less known outside Asia, such as Kuaishou, Douyin or Bilibili), and whose episodes last around one or two minutes. Each series contains between 60 and 100 episodes, meaning the total duration of each series is approximately equivalent to that of a movie. The income. We are not talking about a precisely small market. In 2024 this digital subgenre generated 2,000 million dollars, an amount that could double in 2025. According to Chinese media, we could be talking about 2023 gross revenue of $5.2 billion per yearwhich is equivalent to 70% of China’s film market, one of the most important in the world. An example of the numbers that these series manage: one of the most popular, ‘Unparalleled’ may have earned 14 million dollars in just eight days of broadcast. And not only because of the high price of subscriptions to viewing platforms: their viewers are counted in hundreds of millions and there are already brands of cosmetic products with which they establish themselves juicy sponsorships. The secret to such enormous success? Variety, for example, point that if the time of confinement favored the explosion of health services streaming domestic because there was no choice but to be at home, when viewers have gone out again and used public transport, it is the mobile content apps that have skyrocketed their number of users. Behind this content there are mainly two names: on the one hand, Kuiashou, a platform dedicated to short videos that previously fed, like TikTok, on content mainly created by users (and that was the first to adopt the term “microdrama”); and on the other, Douyin, owned by Bytedance, also owner of TikTok. Leap out of Asia. All of this would remain just another format that is only consumed in China if it were not for the fact that microdramas are beginning to expand beyond the borders of the Asian country. In East and Southeast Asia it is beginning to be common and the company Reelshort (behind which is the giant Tencent and Baidu) want to bring microdramas to the United States, where they are starting to gain traction. The stores of Apple and Google apps, with wide penetration outside Asia, have seen applications intended for this type of content downloaded thirty million times in the first quarter of 2024so the foundations are well established. A look at Reelshort. A quick visit to Reelshort It will make it very clear to us what type of content we are talking about. They are series that westernize the Chinese product, as revealed by those titles with an undeniable oriental soap opera flavor: ‘In Love with the Alpha’, ‘The Billionaire’s Contract’ or ‘Fatal Attraction: Mafioso Romance’. All of them are translated and subtitled using AI, and some of them are dubbed with an unmistakable neutral accent, which also gives some clue as to what type of audience the app is aimed at: regular consumers of Latin American soap operas. The relationship with video games. And there is something else: the deep relationship of these products with video games, which starts with the gamification with which many of these programs are presented. Completing tasks such as watching the series gives access to the currency used by each app (which can also be purchased with real money), which allows you to unlock the episodes of the series that are blocked (the “taste” of the five or ten first episodes of each series is free, to hook the viewer). It is not surprising that some of the companies that own these apps (Crazy Maple Studio, owner of Reelshort, for example) are dedicated to the development of mobile games. In Xataka | There are hundreds of Chinese streamers streaming under bridges at night. And there is an explanation

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