Fox and Endemol Shine North America have officially closed a deal to adapt the early-2000s gross-out reality staple into a vertical-video scripted series, promising audiences a grounded, character-driven approach to drinking blended rat.
Fox and Endemol Shine North America have officially closed a deal to adapt the early-2000s gross-out reality staple “Fear Factor” into a scripted vertical microdrama, promising audiences a grounded, character-driven approach to drinking blended rat.
The highly-anticipated project, which received the green light late Tuesday, will roll out exclusively on My Drama App in bite-sized 60-second installments. According to a source close to the production, the studio aims to elevate the traditional reality-competition format by injecting it with the soapy, high-stakes narrative tension native to the booming vertical-video market. Instead of real people competing for $50,000, the scripted adaptation will feature professional actors delivering tear-jerking monologues before being aggressively submerged in a plexiglass tank of water snakes.
For two decades, audiences watched contestants chew through raw horse intestine and asked themselves, 'But what is his underlying trauma?'
Insiders report that the 80-episode first season will lean heavily into the established tropes of the microdrama genre. The pilot reportedly centers on a secretly wealthy undercover CEO who must win back his amnesiac ex-wife’s affection by successfully transferring three dozen live Madagascar hissing cockroaches between two vats using only his mouth.
The town’s top reps are already aggressively packaging their younger clients for the demanding shoot. Multiple agents at WME and CAA have spent the week pitching Juilliard-trained talent on the career-making potential of letting tarantulas crawl across their faces in a 9:16 aspect ratio, framing the grueling production as a necessary gateway to the coveted Gen-Z algorithmic demographic.
Tracking for the rollout is already exceeding internal expectations, prompting Endemol executives to immediately begin soliciting pitches for a moody, single-camera prestige drama based on the big red bouncy balls from *Wipeout*.