For the past decade, major Hollywood studios have treated TikTok merely as a promotional graveyard—a place to dump marketing trailers after films and television series are already wrapped. However, Dennis Papirowski, TikTok’s global head of content, is pushing for a paradigm shift: he wants creators sitting at the table during the earliest stages of story development.

“Don’t just use them at the end of the process, use them at the very beginning,” Papirowski stated on October 14 during a keynote conversation at MIPCOM Cannes.

In an industry historically reliant on buying and selling finished programming, integrating digital creators upstream fundamentally alters who holds the keys when multi-million dollar budgets are allocated.

With a career spanning both traditional and digital media—starting at Germany’s public broadcaster ZDF, moving to YouTube, and joining TikTok in 2020—Papirowski recognizes this industry evolution firsthand. His inaugural MIPCOM visits were defined by traditional buyers and sellers, while this year's market heavily featured digital creators and platforms.

TikTok Wants Creators In The Commissioning Room

Television commissioning—the high-stakes process of financing and ordering a show—has long been strictly restricted to broadcasters, veteran producers, and studio executives. When asked if fan communities and creators belong in that room, Papirowski offered a blunt assessment.

“Short answer, yes,” he said.

Unlocking this potential requires legacy studios to relinquish a degree of control. “You can’t just dominate the messaging around your movie,” Papirowski explained. “You have to hand over your piece of art, piece of content to that audience, and it will talk about it, will pick out moments that it feels very strongly about, and you sometimes don’t even know what it is.”

This philosophy was on display in July at a TikTok event hosted alongside Sony Pictures for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. More than 100 creators attended, and director Destin Daniel Cretton flipped the script by interviewing three creators about their artistic processes.

Sports organizations, notorious for tightly guarding their media access, are also loosening the reins. During the FIFA World Cup, while Fox held official U.S. broadcasting rights, FIFA designated TikTok as a preferred platform. Thirty creators hailing from 11 distinct countries were granted tournament access. Papirowski notes this unprecedented move demonstrates how far both the sports and entertainment sectors have progressed.

BookTok Keeps Influencing Hollywood Adaptations

The burgeoning reader community known as BookTok has organically transformed into an invaluable incubator for screen adaptations, according to Papirowski.

He points to Amazon as a prime example, noting how the tech giant adapted Mercedes Ron’s novel Culpa Mía into a Spanish-language film, followed by the English-language adaptation My Fault: London. Prime Video has also greenlit a series based on Rebecca Yarros’ smash hit Fourth Wing.

“There’s a ready-made audience with a passionate following of a certain type of IP, and this is where I put my investment,” Papirowski noted, summarizing the mindset of modern buyers.

While acquiring a hit book provides built-in intellectual property and an eager readership, BookTok enthusiasm measures passionate readers rather than guaranteed video subscribers. Hashtags alone cannot accurately predict box office ticket sales or streaming subscriptions.

TikTok Microseries Could Test New Intellectual Property

To bridge this gap, Papirowski argues that microseries—scripted narratives told in bite-sized, minute-long episodes—can serve the exact same validation function for original stories that BookTok provides for published novels. He calls the format an ideal “litmus test” for new intellectual property, characters, and overarching storylines.

Creators and producers looking to secure major funding can establish a concrete proof of concept “by having produced a successful micro-series show.”

TikTok is actively putting capital behind these formats. In April, the platform launched its first microseries partnership with Issa Rae’s Hoorae. Furthermore, on October 14, TikTok announced a strategic alliance with Made By Us Studios, co-led by Tanya Cohen, to co-produce a slate of creator-driven series for TikTok alongside PineDrama, its standalone microdrama application. The initial two projects include Player, starring Hannah Stocking, and The Knock, featuring Adam Rose.

Papirowski frames microseries as a vital stepping stone between short-form viral clips and massive, multi-million-dollar productions bogged down by lengthy development cycles and heavy financial anxiety.

Crucially, this model offers creators a path to true ownership. “I can also start to build IP content that I can hold on to and build a business around this,” Papirowski said, emphasizing the view from the creator's seat.

TikTok Says It Will Not Define The Microseries Market

Throughout MIPCOM, industry insiders used terms like microseries, microdrama, and vertical drama interchangeably, lacking any standardized definitions for formats, genres, or monetization. When questioned whether TikTok plans to formalize these industry standards, Papirowski demurred.

“We’re not going to define it,” he asserted. “We are the platform and we are providing the tools.”

Yet, by actively co-producing original series exclusively for its proprietary microdrama app, TikTok acts as both a host platform and a direct buyer. Papirowski acknowledges this dual identity, noting that TikTok is “also making some bets” with hand-picked partners while simultaneously supplying the foundational infrastructure and tools for independent creators.

TikTok Engagement Does Not Guarantee Paying Viewers

Papirowski actively encourages creators and producers to treat the platform as a dynamic testing lab. “Use the comment section as your real-time feedback where you can really understand what resonates with an audience and what doesn’t,” he advised.

Despite this, view counts and comment metrics gauge fleeting attention rather than sustainable consumer behavior. They cannot definitively prove whether casual scrollers will pay for premium features, or if a narrative designed for two-minute vertical bursts can successfully sustain a 45-minute runtime.

The dialogue also leaves open critical questions regarding how rights, financial revenue, and creative credits will be partitioned when TikTok-tested properties transition into mainstream studio pipelines. TikTok notably withheld financial specifics regarding the Made By Us agreement.

Ultimately, TikTok maintains a vested commercial interest in the outcome. Its Spotlight feature bridges fan-made content directly to ticketing sites and streaming services. Papirowski describes the tool's core mission as making “fan content work for our partners so that it drives real business value.”

TikTok's core pitch guarantees demonstrated audience interest before greenlighting costly production budgets. However, that audience trust relies entirely on creators maintaining their independent voice—the very control that legacy studios are historically hesitant to surrender.

Creators Belong At The Start Of Development, TikTok’s Papirowski Says

When asked what distributors and producers should prioritize in their ongoing conversations with TikTok, Papirowski highlights three distinct opportunities: uncovering targeted audiences for both catalog and new titles, validating concepts via real-time viewer feedback, and engineering original microseries.

His parting guidance for entertainment executives was direct and personal. Rather than “rely on your team to kind of know what’s going on there and just use it as like a social media marketing channel,” executives need to spend time navigating the app themselves. He insists it must be treated as “something that is core to your development process.”

Hollywood has spent years relegating TikTok to the final line item of a marketing checklist. Papirowski is challenging them to flip the script entirely—making it the opening page of their development slates and finally sharing the ultimate decision-making power with creators.

The author attended MIPCOM under official press accreditation and moderated this session by formal invitation from TikTok.