Naver Webtoon Hits Back-to-Back Home Runs on Netflix with 'Hellbound' and 'Jiwoo Hak'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] The drama content "All of Us Are Dead (Jiwoo-hak)," adapted from Naver Webtoon's intellectual property (IP), is riding a wave of success by ranking first in Netflix's global drama rankings.

According to Netflix ranking aggregation site FlixPatrol on the 3rd, Jiwoo-hak topped the charts in 25 countries just one day after its release on the 29th of last month, securing the number one spot worldwide. As of the previous day, it held first place in 58 countries including France, Germany, Canada, Japan, India, and Austria. With this, Jiwoo-hak became the third Korean work to reach the top of Netflix, following "Squid Game" and "Hellbound."

In terms of total viewing hours, Jiwoo-hak recorded 124.79 million hours during the fourth week of January (24th?30th), even though only three days (28th?30th) were counted. This is about twice the first-week viewing hours of Squid Game. If this trend continues, there are even predictions that it will surpass the success of Squid Game.

Jiwoo-hak is a work that visualizes the original webtoon of the same name written by author Joo Dong-geun in 2009. It tells the story of high school students trapped in a school infected by a zombie virus, fighting desperately to survive in their own ways. The drama is directed by Lee Jae-gyu, who also directed "Damo" and "Beethoven Virus," with the screenplay by writer Cheon Sung-il, known for the drama "Chuno" and the film "My Girlfriend Is an Agent."

The success of Jiwoo-hak has provided Naver Webtoon, which owns this IP, with a foothold to establish itself as a global content powerhouse. The drama "Hellbound," which held the number one spot on Netflix for over ten days, is also based on a Naver Webtoon IP. Thus, Naver Webtoon owns two of the three Korean works that have reached the top of Netflix.

Naver Webtoon also expects a significant influx of overseas users. During the success of "Hellbound," there was a flood of interest and inquiries from international readers about the original webtoon on Naver Webtoon, which led to global serialization.

Naver is expected to accelerate the expansion of its webtoon and web novel business, which is emerging as a future growth engine. Last month, it made an additional investment of 397.5 billion KRW in its U.S. webtoon content subsidiary, Webtoon Entertainment. Webtoon Entertainment oversees Naver Webtoon (Korea), LDF (Japan), and other Naver webtoon and web novel subsidiaries.

Kim Jun-gu, CEO of Naver Webtoon, stated at a press conference last August, "We will not only adapt the IP of webtoons and web novels, created by 6 million creators worldwide and viewed by 167 million people monthly, into films and dramas, but also expand into metaverse content through our sister company Zepeto."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.