Fear Factor goes scripted and vertical, and Fox hired microdrama crews to make it

It is prep week on a remote horror television set, and a practical-effects artist and her crew have just switched on a haunted fortune-telling machine. It starts forcing them into personalized death trials, and the survivors have to work out where it came from before it claims everyone they love.

That is the logline for a new scripted horror series inspired by Fear Factor, the dare show that ran for seven seasons on NBC. It will run as 30 episodes of about three minutes each, made for phones, and it premieres exclusively on My Drama, the microdrama app run by Holywater Tech. The format is famous, but the people making it are the part worth your attention.

What was announced

Fox Entertainment Studios and Endemol Shine North America, a Banijay America company, announced the series on Tuesday 27 October. Deadline and TheWrap ran it at 11:00 Pacific, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter followed, and Endemol Shine North America posted it on X that evening. Every outlet quotes the same joint announcement, so this is one source carried four times, not four independent reports.

Fox Entertainment Global handles worldwide distribution. There is no title, no cast, no budget and no shoot date, and Deadline lists the premiere as "Date TBA." The producers describe it as "taking the thrills, tension, and terror synonymous with Fear Factor and reimagining the franchise as an entirely original fictional horror story," which means this is a new story inspired by the format rather than an adaptation of the show.

Michael Heyerman, EVP of unscripted series at Endemol Shine North America, said that with Holywater "we're creating a new generation of horror that doesn't just fit the mobile screen but uses it as part of the experience." Nobody has said yet what that looks like on screen.

The crew learned the format on microdramas

Fox did not hand this to a network drama staff. The writers, Thom Woodley and Andrew Beck, run Hudson Vertical, a small New York studio whose client list includes Fox Entertainment, ReelSaga, FlareFlow, Vigloo and DramaShorts. Woodley has been writing and showrunning vertical and web series since the 2010s, and Beck is a former executive at HBO, The Weinstein Company and Spyglass.

The director, Gabriel Caste, is a Los Angeles director and editor who led post-production at Davis Guggenheim's Concordia Studio. His LinkedIn lists directing work for the microdrama apps DramaBox and DramaWave, plus a National Lampoon feature that he says was shot for both feature and vertical delivery. The producers, Ian David Nsenga and Yuliia Vyshnevska, run Visionary Vertical Productions in Vancouver, where Vyshnevska's work has centered on localizing stories for North American viewers on overseas platforms.

That is the real story here. A Banijay format with 32 adaptations around the world just went to people who learned their craft shooting fast, cheap serials for apps. The vertical gig economy has become a supply chain for big IP, and it is the same market where AI-assisted crews are pitching for work.

Fox's claim of a first needs an asterisk

Hannah Pillemer, head of scripted at Fox Entertainment Studios, credited the success of Fear Factor: House of Fear, the Johnny Knoxville revival that premiered on Fox in January, with opening the door. She said the franchise is now "becoming the first unscripted television franchise to make the leap into original scripted storytelling." Deadline's post on X repeated the claim.

TheWrap worded it more narrowly, as the network's first unscripted-to-scripted franchise extension and the first scripted take on Fear Factor itself, and that version holds. The broad version is harder to defend, because Endemol has been here before: Dead Set, Charlie Brooker's 2008 zombie series for E4, was scripted horror set inside the Big Brother house, made by Endemol UK's Zeppotron.

Where AI fits, and where nobody has said it does

Nothing in the announcement mentions AI. No outlet, no executive quote and no post about the series says it will use generative tools, so anyone selling this as an AI show is ahead of the facts.

The platform is a different matter, because Holywater has been open about its own use. In a Behind the Verticals interview in February, the company put it plainly: "On My Drama, AI is primarily used in post-production and localization to scale content efficiently across markets." That same month it bought Jeynix, a studio that does AI face replacement, de-aging and lip-sync, and renamed itself Holywater Tech. It also runs a separate AI app, My Muse, which it uses to test pilots before scaling them on My Drama.

Even the writers' studio leaves the door open. Hudson Vertical's website says "AI-assisted production is available when it fits the project, the rights, and the budget." None of this confirms AI on Fear Factor. It does show that the app premiering the series has the tools to localize fast, while Fox, not Holywater, controls where the show travels.

Money is why the question keeps coming up. At Mipcom this month, Crazy Maple's Sammie Hao put a live-action vertical series at "200k to 300k" in production fees, and Made By Us co-CEO Tanya Cohen put some AI series at around twenty thousand against roughly two hundred thousand for live action, according to Vertical Observer's recording of the session. Holywater co-CEO Anatolii Kasianov said at the same market that live action stays on My Drama because audiences follow actors and IP holders need it, and Fear Factor is exactly that kind of IP.

One deal inside a bigger bet

Fox Entertainment took an equity stake in Holywater in October 2025 and committed to more than 200 vertical titles for My Drama over two years. The size of the stake has never been disclosed. Since then Fox has signed Dhar Mann Studios for 40 scripted vertical titles, recut season three of Farmer Wants a Wife into 101 vertical episodes, and at Mipcom set 25 titles with Kevin Hart's Hartbeat for a Codeblack channel inside the app.

Holywater raised a $22 million Series A in January. A report it published with Owl & Co in July put men at 30.3% of My Drama's monthly users, up from 1.1%, after it added more action and thrillers. A horror series fits that push. Holywater's user totals are company figures and have not been audited.

What this means for AI creators

If you make vertical work, with AI or without it, the hiring pattern is the signal worth keeping. Studios with famous IP need people who can hook a viewer fast and land a cliffhanger every three minutes, and on this evidence they are finding them in microdrama credits rather than network writers' rooms.

• Microdrama credits now carry weight: Caste's DramaBox and DramaWave work sits on the same credits list as his documentary post-production.
• Boutique studios got the call: Hudson Vertical and Visionary Vertical are small shops, and both were hired by name on a Fox and Banijay project.
• On this app, AI's stated job is post-production and localization, so that is where AI specialists are likeliest to find work around shows like this (our read, not announced).
• Fox's commitment of more than 200 titles means more of these jobs are coming, though no budget has been published for this one.

Our take: Fear Factor isn't an AI story yet, but it shows microdrama crews can now carry network IP, and that is the market AI-assisted makers want into.

Timeline

• Date: 2001 to 2006, 2011 to 2012. Event: Fear Factor runs on NBC for seven seasons; Source: TheWrap
• Date: Oct 2008. Event: Dead Set, scripted horror set in the Big Brother house, airs on E4, made by Endemol UK's Zeppotron; Source: The Guardian
• Date: Thu 9 Oct 2025. Event: Fox Entertainment takes an equity stake in Holywater and commits to 200+ vertical titles over two years; Source: Fox Corporation release
• Date: Sun 11 Jan 2026. Event: Fear Factor: House of Fear, hosted by Johnny Knoxville, premieres on Fox; Source: Deadline; The Futon Critic
• Date: Thu 15 Jan 2026. Event: Holywater raises a $22 million Series A; Source: Axios
• Date: Mon 26 Jan 2026. Event: Fox and Dhar Mann Studios set 40 scripted vertical titles for My Drama; Source: Variety
• Date: Feb 2026. Event: Holywater buys AI face and lip-sync studio Jeynix, renames itself Holywater Tech; Source: Media Play News
• Date: Wed 3 Jun 2026. Event: Farmer Wants a Wife season three recut into 101 vertical episodes; Source: Variety
• Date: Tue 13 Oct 2026. Event: At Mipcom, Fox and Hartbeat set 25 vertical titles for a Codeblack channel on My Drama; Source: Variety; Vertical Observer
• Date: Tue 27 Oct 2026. Event: Scripted Fear Factor horror series announced: 30 three-minute episodes for My Drama; Source: Deadline; TheWrap; Variety; THR
• Date: TBA. Event: Premiere on My Drama; Source: Deadline

Sources and what is unconfirmed: Deadline, TheWrap and Variety (27 Oct 2026, read in full); Endemol Shine North America on X (27 Oct); Fox Corporation release (9 Oct 2025); Behind the Verticals (17 Feb 2026); Media Play News (9 Feb 2026); Axios (15 Jan 2026); Variety on Dhar Mann, Farmer Wants a Wife and Mipcom; Vertical Observer (25 Oct 2026); The Guardian (2008); Hudson Vertical, Visionary Vertical and Gabriel Caste's own pages and LinkedIn. We did not see the joint press release itself, only outlets quoting it word for word. Unconfirmed: any AI use on this series, who will localize it, the title, cast, budget, shoot dates and premiere date, and the size of Fox's stake in Holywater. Variety's line that House of Fear was revived "last year" is wrong: it premiered in January 2026.