Eric Roberts Leads New Vertical Drama "It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To"
Eric Roberts, the actor who was Oscar-nominated for 1985's Runaway Train, is leading a new vertical drama that will reach audiences in two forms: a phone series and a feature film for cinemas.
The project is It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To, according to Deadline. Vertical dramas are short scripted stories filmed for a phone held upright, with episodes that take a few minutes each. The series is being made by New Short Media, a Los Angeles studio focused on what it calls premium vertical microdramas, meaning short, high-production episodes built for that format.
The story follows Anna, who races to hide the truth about her best friend's death on the night of her 21st birthday. Roberts stars alongside Merrick Hanna, Neela Jolene and Ryker Baloun. The show was created by Gev Miron and Charlie Parker.
Trade publication C21 Media reports that the production has wrapped. It describes the title as a horror-comedy and says it was shot as both a dual-format movie and a microdrama. A film for cinemas and a phone series made from the same project is a combination that is becoming more common as studios test how far short-form stories can travel.
New Short Media was set up by Alon Shtruzman, the former head of Keshet International, and Scott Einbinder, who was co-chief executive of Cristal Pictures. The company's launch was first reported in July 2026 by Variety and C21 Media.
Roberts is also in another vertical project, Billionaires' Broken Vow, which premiered at what is described as America's first microdrama festival. That film, along with the new title, places him in a format that many older screen actors have only recently begun to work in.
No release date or distribution platform for either version of It's My Party and I'll Die If I Want To has been announced. Once a phone series and a cinema film are both finished, the next decisions are usually where and when each version appears, and those are the steps that will shape how many people see it.
