For decades, the entertainment industry operated on a simple premise: bigger was better. Feature films stretched past two hours, prestige television ballooned into sprawling multi-season epics, and studios poured billions into content designed to keep audiences glued to their screens for as long as possible. Now, a seismic shift is underway. The most powerful names in Hollywood are scrambling to master the art of brevity — and the stakes could not be higher.

According to a detailed report from Business Insider, Netflix, Disney, and other legacy entertainment giants are aggressively pursuing short-form video strategies, hoping to claw back the attention — and advertising dollars — that have migrated to platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels. The push represents a fundamental rethinking of what Hollywood content looks like, who creates it, and how it gets monetized.

The Attention Economy Has a New Currency

The numbers tell a stark story. YouTube remains the single largest consumer of screen time in the United States, consistently ranking as the most-watched platform on connected televisions. TikTok, despite ongoing regulatory threats in the U.S., commands an average of over 90 minutes per day from its users. Meanwhile, traditional streaming platforms have seen subscriber growth plateau and churn rates climb. The old playbook of spending $200 million on a single film or $15 million per episode on a prestige series is yielding diminishing returns in an era where a 90-second clip of someone reviewing a sandwich can generate more engagement than a carefully crafted studio trailer.

This reality has not been lost on the C-suites of Hollywood’s biggest companies. As Business Insider reported, Netflix has been experimenting with short-form content and clips strategies, recognizing that the platform’s future may depend on its ability to meet audiences where they already are — scrolling through feeds of bite-sized entertainment. Disney, too, has been exploring how its vast intellectual property library can be repurposed and reimagined for shorter formats, leveraging characters and franchises that already have built-in global recognition.

Netflix’s Quiet but Calculated Pivot

Netflix’s approach to short-form has been characteristically methodical. The company has long used clips from its original programming on YouTube and social media as marketing tools, but the strategy is evolving beyond mere promotion. The streamer has been testing features within its own app that surface short clips, funny moments, and highlight reels — essentially building a TikTok-like experience inside the Netflix ecosystem. The goal is twofold: reduce the so-called “browse time” that frustrates subscribers who spend more time choosing what to watch than actually watching, and create new entry points that hook viewers into longer-form content.

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters has publicly acknowledged the competitive threat posed by short-form platforms. During recent earnings calls, Peters has emphasized that Netflix competes for “time and attention” against a far broader set of rivals than just other streaming services. The company’s investment in games, its foray into live events, and now its short-form experiments all reflect an understanding that the streaming wars have expanded well beyond the original battlefield of scripted series and films.

Disney’s IP Advantage — and Its Strategic Dilemma

Disney finds itself in a uniquely advantageous yet complicated position. The company controls some of the most recognizable intellectual property on the planet — Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, the Disney Animation catalog — and that IP translates naturally into short-form content. Short clips featuring Baby Yoda, Spider-Man, or Elsa already dominate social media without Disney having to lift a finger; fan-generated content does much of the work organically. The question is whether Disney can formalize and monetize that phenomenon without alienating creators or diluting its brands.

As Business Insider noted, Disney has been exploring partnerships and internal initiatives aimed at producing original short-form content designed specifically for digital-first audiences. This includes everything from animated shorts tailored for mobile viewing to behind-the-scenes creator-driven content that blurs the line between marketing and entertainment. The challenge for Disney, however, is cultural as much as strategic. The company’s legacy is built on premium, polished storytelling — a far cry from the raw, authentic aesthetic that tends to perform best on platforms like TikTok.

The Creator Economy Collision Course

Perhaps the most disruptive element of Hollywood’s short-form push is the collision with the creator economy. For years, individual creators on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have built massive audiences and lucrative businesses without any involvement from traditional studios. MrBeast, the YouTube megastar, now operates a content empire that rivals mid-size media companies in reach and revenue. Creators like Khaby Lame have become global celebrities with followings that dwarf those of most movie stars.

Hollywood’s entry into short-form is, in many ways, an acknowledgment that these creators have figured out something the studios have not: how to build and maintain daily engagement with audiences at a fraction of the cost. But the relationship between legacy studios and digital creators remains fraught with tension. Studios want the reach and authenticity that creators provide; creators want the resources and IP access that studios control. Finding a model that works for both sides — without one cannibalizing the other — is one of the central challenges of the next era of entertainment.

The Advertising Dollars Driving the Urgency

Underlying all of these strategic maneuvers is a simple financial reality: advertising money is flowing rapidly toward short-form video. According to recent industry analyses, digital video advertising spending in the U.S. is projected to exceed $80 billion in 2025, with a growing share directed toward short-form and creator-driven content. YouTube’s advertising revenue alone surpassed $30 billion in 2023, a figure that continues to climb. TikTok, despite its uncertain regulatory future in the U.S., has built a formidable advertising business that has siphoned dollars from both traditional television and longer-form digital platforms.

For Netflix, which launched its ad-supported tier in late 2022, the short-form opportunity is directly tied to its advertising ambitions. The company has been building out its ad tech infrastructure and pitching advertisers on the premium, brand-safe environment that Netflix offers compared to user-generated platforms. Adding short-form content to the mix could dramatically increase the volume of ad inventory available, making the platform more attractive to advertisers who want both scale and quality. Disney+, which also introduced an ad-supported tier, faces a similar calculus.

The 2026 Inflection Point

Industry observers point to 2026 as a potential inflection point for Hollywood’s short-form ambitions. By then, several major initiatives currently in development or early testing phases are expected to be fully operational. Netflix’s in-app short-form features, Disney’s creator partnership programs, and various studio-backed short-form content channels on YouTube and other platforms should have enough data and audience traction to determine whether the strategy is viable at scale.

The timeline is also shaped by external forces. TikTok’s regulatory situation in the United States remains unresolved, and any potential ban or forced sale could dramatically reshape the short-form market overnight, creating opportunities for incumbents who have built alternative short-form ecosystems. YouTube, meanwhile, continues to invest heavily in YouTube Shorts, its own TikTok competitor, which has surpassed 70 billion daily views globally. The platform’s integration with Google’s advertising infrastructure gives it a structural advantage that Hollywood studios will struggle to replicate independently.

What This Means for the Future of Storytelling

The implications of Hollywood’s short-form pivot extend beyond business strategy into the realm of storytelling itself. If studios commit seriously to producing content designed for consumption in 60-second to 10-minute increments, it will require new creative muscles, new talent pipelines, and new definitions of what constitutes “quality” entertainment. The writers, directors, and producers who have spent their careers crafting two-hour narratives will need to adapt — or make room for a new generation of creators who think natively in short-form.

There are reasons for both optimism and caution. Short-form content has proven its ability to launch cultural phenomena, build fandoms, and drive commercial outcomes at speeds that traditional media cannot match. But it also carries risks: brand dilution, audience fragmentation, and the potential commoditization of storytelling into an endless scroll of forgettable clips. The studios that navigate this transition successfully will be those that find a way to bring Hollywood’s production values and narrative ambitions to a format defined by its immediacy and ephemerality.

As the entertainment industry hurtles toward 2026, one thing is clear: the companies that once defined themselves by the length and grandeur of their content are now betting their futures on mastering the art of keeping it short. Whether that bet pays off will depend on their ability to do something that has historically eluded large institutions — move fast, stay nimble, and resist the temptation to over-engineer what audiences want most: something worth watching in the next 60 seconds.