Online fiction platform banks on vertically integrated production model to turn viral web novels into major motion pictures
A US-based online fiction platform under South Korean portal giant Naver is pushing deeper into Hollywood with plans to adapt one of its most popular stories, "Chasing Red," into a feature film starring Madelaine Petsch and Gavin Casalegno.
The project, announced Tuesday, is the latest effort by Wattpad and its parent company Webtoon to transform its web novel into mainstream entertainment. Production is scheduled to begin in Saudi Arabia in early 2026, with Mackenzie Munro directing from a screenplay by Lauren Schacher.
"Chasing Red," a romance by Isabelle Ronin, has amassed 261 million reads on Wattpad since its 2017 release, making it the platform's second most popular English-language title. The story follows a college student named Veronica who resists the advances of a campus heartthrob, only to end up living under his roof while fleeing a troubled past. It was adapted into a web comic in 2023 and published as both a print and graphic novel.
The film is being produced by Stampede Ventures and Webtoon Productions, the film production arm that Wattpad established after being acquired by Webtoon's parent company, Naver, in a deal worth more than $600 million in 2021. Mister Smith Entertainment has secured distribution deals with Amazon Prime Video in several territories, along with buyers across Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
Wattpad, founded in 2006 as a platform for user-generated fiction, has built a devoted community of more than 94 million users, according to its website, predominantly young women drawn to romance and fan fiction.
Several of its stories have made the leap to screen, either directly or after first being adapted into web comics. The company's biggest success to date remains the "After" series by Anna Todd, a One Direction fan fiction first published on the platform in 2014. Paramount Pictures acquired the rights that same year, and the franchise went on to spawn five films that grossed $168 million at the global box office.
In some cases, Wattpad has moved beyond licensing rights to third parties by producing adaptations in-house through Webtoon Productions, formerly known as Wattpad Webtoon Studios. Apart from "Chasing Red," other projects following this end-to-end model include "Stagtown," a horror film based on a web comic with 18 million views, and "Hawk," an animated sci-fi series written by Marvel screenwriter Christopher Yost.
"Our goal is to also function as a production company optimized for web novel and webtoon IP, as a bridge between source material and screen," a Naver Webtoon official said. "The ability to identify which stories translate well to screen, and adapt them effectively, is what sets us apart."
This model offers several advantages. Stories that reach hundreds of millions of reads have already proven their appeal and come with a built-in fanbase eager to see them brought to life. Producers can also draw on reader feedback, including comments and engagement data that reveal which scenes resonated most strongly, industry watchers say.
"As a producer, just taking one of these webtoons, you get to inherit a fully realized world," Halle Stanford, founder of 7 Crow Stories and former president of the Jim Henson Company, said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in October. "The artists and writers have already tested and refined the stories. When you have that as a producer, it's like manna from the gods."
Webtoon expects that such adaptations may offer Hollywood a path beyond the superhero fatigue that has dampened enthusiasm for traditional comic book properties. Wattpad's catalog skews toward romance and fantasy, genres that appeal to younger audiences seeking alternatives to the Marvel and DC franchises.
"As Hollywood looks to move away from relying on existing comic IP and seeks new source material, webtoon's IP with proven fanbases may emerge as an attractive alternative," an industry official said. "Naver Webtoon's accumulated expertise in the web novel-to-webtoon-to-screen pipeline might pay off in the long run."
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
