Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Plans More Than 20 Microseries With aTwist
Updated: Oct 9
Kevin Hart's company Hartbeat has agreed to make more than 20 original microseries with aTwist, including comedy under the LOL banner and adaptations of books by Blake Karrington. TheWrap reported the deal September 1, 2026, as aTwist prepared to launch.
Twenty is a slate, not twenty shows already on your phone. That distinction matters when a headline makes the industry sound as if it can turn a signature into finished episodes overnight. Writing, casting, filming and release are still separate hurdles.
Why books are in the plan
Hartbeat's distribution chief described the advantage of starting with readers who already care about the source material. A known book gives a series a premise people can recognize before the first scene. It also gives marketers a community to reach without explaining why the relationship matters from scratch.
But adaptation has a trap. A reader may love a book because its inner voice takes time to build desire or dread. A vertical episode has much less room for that interior life. Simply chopping chapters into one-minute units will not create a good series. The adaptation needs to find visual choices, turning points and a specific end beat for each installment.
Comedy is the interesting test
Romance and revenge dominate many microdrama feeds. Hartbeat's involvement makes comedy a bigger part of this particular pitch. A comic cliffhanger needs a different rhythm from a threatened wedding: the audience must feel a surprise is coming, enjoy the payoff and still have a reason to return. It is an appealing challenge for writers who do not want to write a secret-billionaire plot.
No release schedule or individual budgets for the entire proposed slate were given in the report. The deal establishes ambition; the resulting shows will tell us how that ambition plays on a small screen.
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Viola Musaraj is a writer, novelist, micro and vertical drama producer, and interactive narrative designer with more than 140 million reads worldwide.
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