K-Webtoons to Be Drama-fied on Streaming and TV

Again, this year, K-webtoons have been a boon to the content market. While webtoon-based works such as Netflix's "Mask Girl" and Disney+ "Moving" have succeeded in global box office success, a large number of webtoons will also visit viewers in the second half of the year.

Advertisement

In particular, each OTT is striving to attract users with various webtoon original dramas as killer content. First of all, Netflix will release "Doona!" on the 20th of this month. Based on Naver Webtoon of the same name, the work is a romance drama about ordinary college student Won-joon (Yang Se-jong) who meets retired Doo-na (Bae Suzy) at a shared house after leaving her colorful K-pop idol days behind.

"Daily Dose of Sunshine" which will be released on Netflix on the 3rd of next month, is also based on a webtoon. This work depicts various stories of the world and heartbroken people that Da-eun (Park Bo-young), a nurse who works in the Department of Mental Health for the first time, meets in the psychiatric ward. Actors Park Bo-young, Yeon Woo-jin, Jang Dong-yoon, and Lee Jung-eun announced their appearance.

Netflix's "Sweet Home" will also return for a new season within this year. "Sweet Home" depicts a bizarre and shocking story of a reclusive high school student, Hyeon-soo (Song Kang), who loses his family and moves into an apartment, and received great love when season 1 was released in December 2020. "Sweet Home - Season 2" and "Sweet Home - Season 3" which were produced at the same time, will be joined by Yu Oh-seong, Oh Jung-se, Kim Mu-yeol and Jin Young, following existing performers such as Park Gyu-young, Song Kang and Go Min-si.

Following "Moving" and "Han River Police", Disney+ will present another webtoon original drama, "Vigilante", on the 8th of next month. This work is an action thriller in which Kim Ji-yong (Nam Joo-hyuk), who is a model police student who defends the law during the day but lives as a vigilante who judges criminals who escape the law at night, and people with different purposes surrounding him fiercely. Expectations are high for its stellar cast, including Nam Joo-hyuk, Yoo Ji-tae, Lee Joon-hyuk, and Kim So-jin.

Wavve has released a crime thriller drama called "The Perfect Deal" based on the excellent work of the Naver Webtoon contest since the 6th. The drama is a 10 billion kidnapping thriller of two young men who accidentally kidnap a friend, drawing much attention to achieving the top spot in the Wavve new paid subscriber attraction index shortly after the first and second episodes were released.

TVING will release "A Bloody Lucky Day" starring Lee Sung-min and Yoo Yeon-seok on the 24th of next month. "A Bloody Lucky Day" is a thriller about an ordinary taxi driver Oh Taek (Lee Sung-min) who carries a customer (Yoo Yeon-seok) bound for Mokpo who offers a high price, and begins to run in fear when he realizes that he is a serial killer. At the 28th Busan International Film Festival, three out of six episodes were recently released for the first time.

Broadcasters are also pouring out original webtoon dramas one after another. On MBC, the Wednesday drama "A Good Day to be a Dog" was first broadcast on the 11th. It is an unpredictable fantasy romance drama between a woman who is cursed with a curse that turns into a dog when she kisses and a man whose is the only cheat key who can solve the curse but is afraid of dogs. Park Gyu-young, Cha Eun-woo, and Lee Hyun-woo will appear.

ENA, which recently enjoyed the original webtoon drama "Not Others" is aiming for another hit with "Moon in the Day" on the 25th of this month. The film is a beloved reincarnation fantasy romance between a man whose time has stopped after he was killed by his beloved lover and a woman who lost her previous life's memory, starring Pyo Ye-jin and Kim Young-dae.

Webtoon IP acts as a box office guarantee check in the drama market, and more variety of original webtoons are expected to be produced in the future. An official from a production company said, "There is a perception that making webtoons with proven popularity and productivity into movies or dramas is less likely to fail than other works", and added, "Since various webtoons are still discussing imaging work, you will be able to see more webtoons' original series and dramas in the future".