Photo: Collected
Australia’s popular long-running serial ‘Neighbours’ is now returning in a new format. The serial’s episodes and storylines featuring Margot Robbie will be cut and turned into short vertical videos, which will be released as smartphone-centric microdramas.
For this, Fremantle, the production company of ‘Neighbours’, has partnered with vertical video platform Roseberry Media. In the first phase, two storylines centred on Donna Freedman, the character played by Margot Robbie, have been chosen for release on their ‘Epis’ platform. These two storylines will be edited to create about 150 minutes of vertical video content in all.
Margot Robbie played the character of Donna Freedman in ‘Neighbours’ from 2008 to 2011. She later became an international star by acting in films such as ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, ‘I, Tonya’ and ‘Barbie’.
Roseberry’s AI-assisted technology named RedSnapper will be used in this project. The technology will analyse the vast archive of ‘Neighbours’ and help identify characters, story arcs and important scenes. They will then be edited to suit the vertical screen of the mobile phone.
‘Neighbours’, which began its journey in 1985, aired about 9,363 episodes before ending in 2025. Besides Margot Robbie, this serial was an important part of the early careers of stars such as Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, Jason Donovan and Jesse Spencer.
This is an attempt to reach new viewers by dividing old storylines into vertical episodes of a few minutes instead of showing full episodes of a conventional television series again. Roseberry claims there is scope in future to turn more old television and film content into a mobile-centric format in this way.
Jens Richter, head of Fremantle’s commercial and international division, said that through this partnership, alongside taking the vast archive of ‘Neighbours’ to new viewers, new commercial possibilities for old content are also being explored.
