Disney & Webtoon Entertainment Strike Historic Deal!!

Disney is giving another entertainment giant access to its war chest of pop culture icons. The House of Mouse has struck a multi-year deal with Webtoon Entertainment for roughly 100 titles to be released on the popular web comics app over the next few years, featuring characters and franchises under its umbrella, from Spider-Man to Star Wars, Beauty and the Beast, and much more. This will include a selection of existing comics and graphic novels reformatted to fit the app, alongside new stories that are currently being developed. Although specifics of the deal aren’t available, it’s a massive new agreement that will get the company’s characters in front of the eyes of over 155 million monthly active users globally.

Under the new agreement, which Daniel Fink, senior VP, head of digital innovation at Disney Consumer Products, called “one of the biggest we have ever done,” Disney will get its own dedicated section on the app packed with material from the entertainment giant’s worlds. That also means that 20th Century Studios properties, like Alien, are fair game. Leading off the new selection will be Amazing Spider-Man later this month, with the sci-fi horror franchise originated by Ridley Scott following alongside Marvel’s Avengers, Star Wars, and As Old as Time: A Twisted Tale, following Belle and the Beast. The Disney webcomics will be available in a dedicated section of the Webtoon English-language app and will include a selection of free episodes at launch, with subsequent episodes available to unlock using Webtoon Coins.

A pact between the two behemoths had been brewing for over a year before pen finally came to paper. Both companies had a ton of incentive to make something happen, given the opportunities they provide each other. According to Fink, Disney was especially interested in the growth of Webtoon and how the platform has reached “people who are not traditional comics readers,” particularly younger generations. “We have such amazing stories at Disney and Marvel, and we want our stories to reach as many people as possible.” New stories are exciting, but the idea of getting younger viewers onto classic comic stories from years past was also appealing. Webtoon, of course, was more interested in adding some very recognizable new names to the service, expanding on their existing partnerships with DC Comics, Discord, and the K-pop giant HYBE. Disney offers properties that Yongsoo Kim, chief strategy officer and head of global at Webtoon, sees as “among the most legendary, creative and successful in the industry.”

Webtoon Has Risen as an Entertainment Empire

Webtoon Entertainment is much more than just a source for web comics. The company has loads of other branches under its purview, including Wattpad, Webtoon Productions, Studio N, Studio LICO, Webtoon Unscrolled, Line Manga, and eBookJapan. Altogether, it’s become a juggernaut responsible for launching some big-name titles of its own and expanding those titles beyond just comics and into television series, as was the case with anime like Tower of God and Viral Hit. Another of its most popular home-grown comics, Teenage Mercenary, is next on the docket to get an adaptation, joining a slate of 20 such titles that it looks to bring to the screen and further expand its growing empire.