Upscale Media Films: Adapting Books at Unprecedented Speed

Upscale Media Films has formally launched as a dedicated production company for the microdrama market. CEO and founder Malik Davis has established a business model centered on owning a portfolio of published book properties. This allows Upscale to pair these literary assets with an in-house team for development, casting, shooting, editing, and delivery.

This integrated approach aims to eliminate the significant costs associated with traditional adaptation development and packaging. By producing stories on lean budgets, Upscale funds and de-risks each production stage, with potential for adaptation into longer-form content. This model is currently being used for a slate of shows with Hartbeat, based on Blake Karrington's novels for the microdrama platform aTwist.

The company is also producing Exotic Foods, a ten-episode horror anthology series, leveraging its hybrid AI-assisted production workflow. Davis emphasized that controlling the pipeline end-to-end enables the company to move swiftly while maintaining the quality expected by partners like Hartbeat. Karrington's novels, which have sold over 16.5 million units, are being adapted into episodic vertical form.

Upscale's team includes key personnel such as CFO Tiffaney Collins, Casting Director Rhavynn Drummer, and Chief AI Officer Delmone Rivers. Beyond the Karrington slate, Upscale is developing other projects, including Trapstar and The King of the South, and is set to produce Single Ladies and Scandalous, alongside feature films R.I.C.O. Detroit and Adrenaline Junkies.