Taye Diggs Is Hollywood’s Newest Vertical Drama Star, Playing a Man Romancing His Best Friend’s Daughter in CandyJar Original (EXCLUSIVE)

Taye Diggs is entering the vertical drama space, a growing industry around content made to be watched on smartphones. CandyJar, which bills itself as the first microdrama streaming platform out of the U.S., has set Diggs as the star and executive producer of a series titled “Off Limits & All Mine.”

Diggs may be the first A-lister to appear in a project like this. Part of the success of vertical dramas — which have already generated billions of dollars of revenue in other countries, particularly in Asia — has to do with low production costs. As such, the burgeoning American microdrama industry has thus far been populated with working actors who make around $500 a day. But CandyJar hopes that involvement from someone like Diggs — beloved for roles in “The Best Man,” “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” “Rent” and more — will add sheen to the format as a whole.

“Off Limits & All Mine” (working title) is a romance starring Diggs as “a widower who takes in his best friend’s rebellious daughter and realizes that a dangerous and transformative connection is about to unfold,” per the official logline. The series will feature a Black ensemble; CandyJar says in a press release that it aims to “prove that Black-led romantic dramas belong at the center of the microdrama boom, not at its margins.” As such, CandyJar parent Inkitt is producing the series in partnership with Atlanta-based Freeli Films, which has made films for BET, Starz, Peacock and Amazon Prime Video.

Production on “Off Limits & All Mine” begins in Atlanta in February. Diggs’ frequent collaborator J. Carter serves as lead producer, with Troy Brookins executive producing and Alexandria Collins directing.

Founded in 2013, Inkitt is a digital platform that uses AI to identify user-submitted stories that have potential for franchising. Selected stories are then moved to Galatea, the company’s pay-to-read app, or adapted into microdramas on CandyJar. Inkitt says that it has become “a hit-making engine now delivering a million-dollar success every seven days” and that CandyJar averages 70 million episodes streamed per month, more than 5.5 million users and an audience that spends an average of 40 minutes per day watching.

“Microdramas are no longer experimental,” Inkitt’s director of production Lily Darragh Harty said in a statement. “Projects like this show that the format can support serious creative ambition, high production standards and top-tier talent, which is exactly the future CandyJar is building toward.”