The SBS drama Manager Kim, starring actor So Ji-sub, surpassed a 20% viewership rating in just the fourth episode. It is the highest rating among dramas aired this year. Manager Kim is based on a popular webtoon of the same name and is an action drama that follows an ordinary middle-aged father who works at a savings bank as he fights to find his suddenly missing daughter. Reminiscent of the movie Taken, the revenge story is gaining popularity with a fast, exhilarating pace and intense action.
True Education, which aired earlier on Netflix, also sparked a box-office sensation, ranking No. 1 globally for four weeks in the non-English drama category after its release on the on the . True Education is also based on a webtoon of the same name and depicts the story of the fictional agency "Office for the Protection of Teachers' Rights," which sets out to fix the broken reality of education caused by boundary-crossing students, teachers and parents.
Naver Webtoon and Kakao Entertainment, the two leading domestic webtoon corporations, are accelerating adaptations of their popular titles. Because it is difficult to generate revenue from webtoons and web novels alone, they are doubling down on an "intellectual property (IP) expansion strategy" that extends the lifespan of hit IP by producing it as video content such as dramas, films and animation. In the long term, they plan to foster "mega IP" with solid fandoms to find a breakthrough in the webtoon market, where growth has stagnated.
While Naver Webtoon is pursuing a large-scale IP expansion beyond Korea by increasing the volume of adaptations in global markets such as North America, Japan and Taiwan, Kakao Entertainment appears focused on a "selection and concentration" strategy, choosing titles with strong box-office potential for adaptation.
According to related industries on the 6th, a string of live-action adaptation projects based on Naver Webtoon's popular IP—such as the dramas Manager Kim, True Education, Becoming a Legend as an Army Cook, New Employee Director Kang, and Bloodhounds Season 2—have swept terrestrial TV and the OTT (over-the-top) market, scoring hits. From 2014 to 2025, Naver Webtoon adapted a total of 198 titles over 12 years. This year alone, it introduced 15 drama and animation titles based on Naver Webtoon IP in Korea and Japan. It is also preparing numerous webtoon-based animations targeting global markets such as North America and Japan.
Kakao Entertainment's webtoon-based dramas Going to Work Tomorrow and Doctor Seomboy each ranked No. 1 and No. 2 among cable dramas after premiering in the first half of this year. In the second half, Rat and Married Woman Killer, also based on Kakao Entertainment webtoons, are slated for release.
The reason webtoon adaptations have surged in recent years is that the risk of failure is lower from a production standpoint. These works have already proven themselves in the webtoon platforms, and because they are visualized content, they are relatively easier to adapt. With character appearances and costumes, dialogue, and compositions or direction of specific scenes available as drawings, there is ample reference material for adaptation. As production costs for a single drama have soared to billions of won, and some series now require tens of billions of won, production and investment companies prefer webtoon IP, which offers a degree of guaranteed success. Webtoons and web novels have increased their completeness by adjusting art styles and plots based on weekly accumulated views, ratings and reader comments, and works that became hits on that basis are seen as having secured broad appeal.
Webtoon platforms aim to extend IP lifespans by adapting proven titles and, further, to build monetization models by expanding them into various forms such as games, merchandise, performances and publishing. As growth in the domestic webtoon market has slowed in recent years, they have shifted strategies toward targeting overseas markets and strengthening IP competitiveness. Kim Yong-su, CEO of Webtoon Entertainment, Naver Webtoon's U.S. headquarters, presented the discovery of "mega IP" as a core growth strategy, saying, "We will diversify our revenue structure by strengthening the IP value chain that extends to video, games and merchandise."
To maximize revenue, webtoon platforms are also strengthening in-house production capabilities rather than relying solely on the model of selling rights to major OTT services or production companies such as Netflix and Disney+. Outsourcing limits revenue to original rights fees, but participating in production allows them to capture everything from box-office revenue tied to distribution and circulation to subsequent IP business revenue such as merchandise.
In fact, while Webtoon Entertainment, Naver Webtoon's U.S. headquarters, has posted losses for years—$63.51 million (about 97.3 billion won) last year and $8.03 million (about 12.3 billion won) in operating losses in the first quarter of this year—its production subsidiary Studio N, established in 2018, turned profitable, recording 2.2 billion won in operating profit last year. Studio N's revenue last year was 117.9 billion won, up 60% from the previous year. Studio N has steadily expanded its scale by producing hit dramas such as Severe Trauma Center and Sweet Home and the film My Daughter is a Zombie.
Kakao Entertainment's flagship title Solo Leveling is also a representative case of the webtoon industry's monetization strategy through IP expansion. Solo Leveling, based on a web novel and webtoon of the same name, was adapted into animation and a game and achieved worldwide success, and it is slated to become a theatrical animation and a Netflix drama. Kakao Entertainment is considered strong thanks to its vertically integrated structure, combining management and drama production capabilities from planning and casting to production and distribution.