Fox Entertainment and Hartbeat, the media company led by Kevin Hart, announced a new partnership on October 13 that uses short-form video content as a testing ground for future film and television projects. Under the deal, Hartbeat’s Codeblack, Essence, and Revolt brands will produce short, mobile-first series, while Fox Entertainment Studios holds first-look rights to develop any standout stories into full-length movies or TV shows, with Fox Entertainment Global handling worldwide distribution of the vertical series themselves.
The pipeline launches with 25 titles spanning thriller, drama, and faith-based storytelling, all releasing on a new Codeblack-branded channel built on My Drama, the vertical video platform from Fox’s partner Holywater Tech. It’s the first dedicated branded channel the platform has built for any single company. Codeblack, Essence, and Revolt bring a combined social media following of more than 20 million people, giving each new series built-in visibility the moment it launches. The arrangement functions as one shared development pipeline rather than three separate deals: all three brands contribute content into the same system, and Fox holds first-look rights across everything that comes out of it, giving the strongest stories a path toward longer-form production before any other studio can make an offer.
Hartbeat and Essence have worked together before, partnering in 2025 to launch an Essence-branded FAST channel. This new Fox deal expands that relationship significantly, moving from a single-platform channel partnership into a full development pipeline spanning three brands and tied directly to a major studio’s production and distribution arm.
Jeff Clanagan, who founded Codeblack and now also serves as Hartbeat’s president and chief distribution officer, described the new Fox deal as the culmination of a vision he’s been building toward, bringing Codeblack, Essence, and Revolt together into one shared home for stories made for the audiences they’ve spent decades earning trust with. Hannah Pillemer, head of scripted at Fox Entertainment Studios, called the structure a smarter, more audience-informed approach to developing intellectual property, letting Fox identify strong ideas early and give the ones that resonate a real path toward becoming full productions.
With the first slate of 25 titles now set to roll out, the next thing to watch is which of these stories actually break through with audiences, and how quickly Fox moves once a short series proves it has the makings of something bigger.