Not-so-'Ominscient' production shows webtoon adaptation success hinges on fandom

A still from the fantasy action film ″Omniscient Reader″ [LOTTE ENTERTAINMENT]

 
In the entertainment business, there is no single recipe for success. A formula that works today may fail tomorrow, and what failed yesterday might strike a chord today. This may be why even in the 21st century, some still perform the traditional “pig’s head” ritual to ward off misfortune. In a way, the content industry could be said to depend entirely on how much risk can be reduced.
 
This is where web novels and webtoons come in. In a market where rising production costs have made risks far greater than before, the already proven intellectual property (IP) of web novels and webtoons seems like the safest bet.
 

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And it’s not an unreasonable view. Hundreds of new stories pour onto web novel platforms every day, but fewer than 1 percent are adapted into webtoons. The odds of a webtoon breaking through fierce competition to become a drama or film, then, are even slimmer — less than 1 percent. That means a web novel’s chance of ultimately making it to the big screen is, at best, around 0.01 percent.
 
With this process, the specific becomes universal; it’s no longer just a story beloved by a niche group of devoted fans — it must resonate with a broader audience before it can move to the next stage.
 
Those that make it to film or TV are “extreme survivors” that have weathered brutal competition. Even if the main consumer base for webtoons and web novels is concentrated in their teens to 30s, the works chosen for screen adaptations are already recognized as having the potential to transcend those demographics.
 

A poster for KBS’s 2021 television drama series “At a Distance, Spring Is Green″ [KBS]

 
“Omniscient Reader” is the pinnacle of such works. Beginning as a web novel in 2018, becoming a webtoon in 2020, and now having released a film adaptation this year, each step has been a milestone. The series has amassed over 800 million views, with vibrant fan art, merchandise and some of the most active fan-created works in Korea. On the protagonist’s birthday, fans take out subway ads — a tradition typically reserved for K-pop stars and actors with fervent fan clubs, which speaks volumes about the series' status as one of the country’s most powerful fandoms.
 
It’s no wonder the film announcement caused a stir. Add to that a star-studded cast — Lee Min-ho, Ahn Hyo-seop, Chae Soo-bin, Nana and Blackpink’s Jisoo — and anticipation soared. Still, there was both excitement and concern over how its vast world-building would be brought to life.
 
Yet after two weekends in theaters, the box office stands at just 1 million admissions. With a budget of 30 billion won ($21.6 million) — one of the largest for a single film in Korea — and a break-even point of 6 million tickets, it's on a crash course with a worst-case scenario, making one wonder if perhaps the production simply tried too hard.
 
From a risk-hedging perspective, fandom is certainly an advantage. In a market overflowing with entertainment options, audiences want to spend their time and money efficiently, and early buzz matters more than ever. This is why “going viral” is so important. Works with established fandoms start from a different position, using initial fan-driven hype as a springboard to reach broader audiences.
 
But this is where the paradox of “Omniscient Reader” began: The very safety net believed to be its strongest asset — the fandom — turned into its sharpest blade. Once the safety net was gone, only risk remained.
 

A poster for the Disney+ series ″Moving″ (2023) [WALT DISNEY COMPANY KOREA]

 
Fandoms are unique. In industry terms, they are not merely die-hard fans but “core shareholders” who “co-create” and “co-own” the value and meaning of an IP. The terms aren't meant literally — they reflect how deeply fans can shape a franchise, to the extent that they’re viewed as wielding influence on par with shareholders. Even if a production company pays a large licensing fee to secure the legal rights, that does not mean it immediately understands the mutual appreciation fans have for the IP. Particularly with works like “Omniscient Reader,” where fan loyalty is the IP’s greatest asset, the author’s approval alone is not enough to calm an outraged fan base.
 
What matters to a fandom is not legal ownership, but the “emotional equity” built over years of laughing, crying and growing with a work. This goes beyond the joy of consumption — it includes the time spent watching characters develop, the communities formed through world-building analysis and discussion and creative contributions that expand the universe through fan works. Fans will cheer for expansions of the story, but if the world and message they helped build are harmed, they will not accept it.
 
Take the Disney+ fantasy sci-fi television series “Moving” (2023) for example. Author Kang Full wrote the screenplay himself, adding backstories for characters that the 2015 webtoon could not explore. Fans saw this not as damage to the source material but as an enrichment of the world, receiving it as a “gift” from the creator. The result? Praise that it was “better than the original” and a spike in Disney+ subscriptions, according to Disney CEO Bob Iger in November 2024, when he directly attributed the boost to the show, largely thanks to its fandom.
 
By contrast, the “Along With the Gods” film franchise (2017-18) cut the key character Jin Gi-han, a lawyer, from the story — sparking anger. But because the core theme of “forgiveness and redemption” remained intact, fans accepted the adaptation as a valid cinematic choice.
 
The failure of “Omniscient Reader” lies here. Simplifying the “constellation” system was forgivable as a cinematic choice. But fans could not accept what they saw as a distortion of the story’s core philosophy. Protagonist Kim Dok-ja was not simply a hero — he was selfish at times, a cold strategist at others, a multidimensional figure struggling to survive. To fans, his story was not just about “how to survive in a competitive society” but a meta-question: “How can a single reader subvert an epic narrative?”
 
But the film flattened this into simplistic morality about altruism in a competitive society, erasing the protagonist’s complexity and the soul of the work. To the fandom, this was trampling on their emotional equity for the sake of commercial logic. The virality that should have been fueled by fandom instead generated its fiercest criticism.
 
No adaptation can perfectly replicate its source. Condensing the vast story of “Omniscient Reader” into a two-hour film inevitably requires selective choices. The question is: Where is the bottom line? Past examples show that it lies in respecting the core narrative and thematic spirit — the “soul” of the original.
 

A still from the comedy zombie film ″My Daughter is a Zombie″ [NEW]

 
A good example is the film “My Daughter is a Zombie,” which surpassed 2 million admissions in just six days after its release and is cruising at the box office. The film made bold changes to the original 2018-20 webtoon — turning the protagonist into a wild animal trainer and moving the main setting to an isolated fishing village — but these were not mere tweaks.
 
The narrow and closed-off village heightened the father’s desperation to hide his zombie daughter, while his profession gave credibility to his attempts to suppress and communicate with her zombie instincts, amplifying the work’s signature “absurd comedy” without harming its central theme of fatherly love in a zombie crisis. Fans and general audiences alike embraced it.
 
On the other hand, KBS’s 2021 television drama series “At a Distance, Spring Is Green,” adapted from the 2014-22 webtoon with over 180 million views, removed the subtle emotional undercurrents of the storyline that was the original’s emotional core — boy love, a style of fiction that depicts intimate relationships between male characters, typically created for and consumed by a primarily female audience — losing its fandom in the process.
 
Netflix’s action noir television series “Mercy for None,” released in June, went further astray. In the original 2020-21 webtoon, the plaza was not just a place but a brutal world where all rules collapsed and only the law of power remained. The protagonist’s raw, violent nature symbolized this universe. But the series erased it all — cutting the much-anticipated “Plaza Wars” arc and softening the protagonist’s survival-driven fights into formulaic heroic action.
 
The English title even dropped the word “Plaza,” which is the original Korean title. The IP’s greatest asset — its fandom — turned away, and the early viral effect producers had counted on vanished. Though the series gained some traction thanks to actor So Ji-sub and its genre appeal, it failed to leverage the webtoon or web novel connection at all.
 

Posters for Netflix's ″Mercy for None,″ left, and the webtoon ″Plaza″ (2020-21) [NETFLIX, NAVER WEBTOON]

 
As an exception, sometimes webtoons or web novels are chosen not for their existing fandoms, but for the potential to borrow and adapt their storylines or themes. The 2003 film “Oldboy” is one such case: The 1996-98 Japanese manga had little mainstream popularity, and the film borrowed only the bare premise of a man imprisoned for 15 years without explanation, crafting a wholly different masterpiece.
 
But when a work with a powerful fandom is chosen, it’s not just about borrowing a premise, it’s about using that fandom as a core driver of success. In such cases, communication with the fandom is paramount. This doesn’t mean holding casting votes or revealing scripts, but building confidence from the start that the creators truly understand the value fans place on the work they love.
 
When adapting a work that has defined an era’s fandom, recognizing that fandom’s emotional equity and listening to their voices are the only way to achieve the original goal of risk hedging — and to turn an adaptation into a second creation that wins over the broader public as well.
 
The future of K-content will depend less on who secures the biggest IPs, and more on who can wisely win the hearts of these “fandom shareholders.” In this, production companies must move from being all-powerful creators to wise managers who grow an IP’s value together with its fandom. That is the only way to turn the 0.01 percent miracle into true box-office success.


This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom staff.
BY CHO YOUNG-SHIN [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]