“Edgy” Digital Platform Blackpills Launches App With Slate Of 12 Scripted Originals

Blackpills, a nascent digital media outfit focused on short-form scripted content, has unveiled today an eponymous app that will house, at launch, 12 original series.

All told, Blackpills says, new shows will be released every week on the app in 2017, and the company intends to build a library of more than 50 original series by year’s end, with episodes generally landing at 10 minutes in length. Targeting millennials, shows will cover sexual health, privacy in the digital age, politics, race, and more. The Blackpills app is available for free on iOS and Android devices.

While the initial slate of 12 shows features projects from film industry luminaries like Luc Besson and Zoe Cassavetes, other projects on tap include series headlined by top-tier digital influencers including Logan Paul, Christian Delgrosso, and DeStorm Power. Blackpills teamed with Vice in March to preview several of the series within a standalone channel.

“We designed Blackpills Media to provide creatives the resources and a new sort of freedom to authentically express themselves,” said Blackpills co-founder Patrick Holzman, a former Canal+ exec who formed the company in 2016 alongside Deezer founder Daniel Marhely. “We’ve created this through our edgy content, fast production time, and native mobile format that attracts a large range of international high-quality talent.”

Check out the app’s launch slate, courtesy of Blackpills, right here:

• All Wrong, with Chris Marquette and Brittany Furlan: Carlos finds himself unemployed, broke, and in debt. When he finally manages to bring home a woman for a one-night stand, everything gets even worse.

• Duels, with Daniela Delfino and David Brownstein: Inspired by a recent lecture in their history class, three students decide to bring back the practice of dueling to solve their conflicts. As the videos go viral, the violence escalates and becomes a statewide issue.

• Junior, directed and created by Zoe Cassavetes, with Lucia Ribisi, Kristin Froseth, Eric Johnson, Amy Seimetz: An unapologetic story about a teenage girl who finds herself in an unexpected love triangle with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend.

• Pillowtalk, created by Mike Piscitelli and Rachael Taylor, executive producer Sharon Horgan and starring Patrick J. Adams: A tortured bachelor trying to stay in ‘the light’ in a world where casual sex is at his beck and call.

• Pineapple, written, directed, and edited by Arkasha Stevenson and starring Ron Gilbert: Originally premiered at Sundance Film Festival and acquired from Adaptive Studios by Blackpills, Pineapple tells the story of a small town after the daughter of a miner is assaulted in a local coal mine.

• Playground (pictured above), original idea by Luc Besson: A teenage girl joins a school for assassins and uncovers the mystery of her parents’ death.

• Skinford, with Josh Brennan: In an attempt to save his father from death, Jimmy Skinford ends up risking his own life. His only chance of survival is to be touched by an immortal woman who is buried underground.

• Surrogate, starring Emmeli Stjärnfeldt: Jane has been recently certified as a substitute surrogate partner for sexual therapy. At the Clinic for Healthy Sex, she meets with a wide range of clients in need of help for a variety of sexual disorders.

• Twiz and Tuck, starring Twiz and Tuck: A wild, weird, irreverent guide to settling down from the trans and gender-fluid best friends, who drew up a list of the 25 things they wanted to do before they said goodbye to their wilder days, and set off across America to check them off.

• Tycoon, directed by Louis Leterrier and written by Ben Kalifi and Erez Tadmor: The show follows a woman who has chosen to trade a year of her life and her privacy in exchange for $5 million. All she has to do is allow a young, vengeful real estate mogul trying to win back his empire control her every move.

• Virgin, starring Georgina Leming and Sand Van Roy: Ellie, a girl in her early 20’s in a committed relationship prepares to lose her virginity to her boyfriend. Her two more sexually experienced roommates teach her everything she needs to know for the big moment.

• You Got Trumped, directed by Derek Harvie and starring Ron Sparks: Created before the most recent U.S. election results were announced, this satire shows viewers what Donald Trump’s first 100 days in the White House might be like.