James Franco is headlining a microdrama.
The actor stars in “Love, Lies & Frank,” now streaming exclusively on Shortical and counted among the first series produced under SAG-AFTRA’s Verticals Agreement.
Franco, known for “127 Hours” and “The Disaster Artist,” shares the screen with established vertical stars Eric Guilmette (“CEO’s Kansas Sweetheart”) and Neela Jolene (“Cheerleader and the Beast”).
The series follows Jimmy Frank (Franco), an eccentric ad agency CEO who projects confidence and humor while contending with risk and unresolved fallout from his past, including criminal and supernatural threats circling his company. A parallel storyline follows Daniella Hanson (Jolene), an ambitious employee who lands her dream campaign just as she rekindles a forbidden romance with Cameron Frank (Guilmette), her boss’s stepbrother, forcing her to weigh her career against a relationship she has kept hidden.
The pairing reflects a broader trend of Hollywood talent moving into the fast-growing microdrama space, following moves by Taye Diggs into a CandyJar series, Issa Rae’s Hoorae producing a microdrama for TikTok’s PineDrama, and Fox Entertainment taking a stake in vertical-video studio Holywater.
