Naver Webtoon 'Money Game' Adapted as First Webtoon IP into US Web Variety Show

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Naver Webtoon’s popular webtoon ‘Money Game’ has been produced as a web variety show in the United States.

On the 14th (local time), Naver Webtoon announced that the American version of the web variety show ‘Money Game’ was released on the YouTube channel ‘Jubilee,’ which has 7 million subscribers. This is the first time in the industry that a Korean webtoon IP has been produced as global video content involving overseas production staff and cast.

The American version of the web variety show ‘Money Game,’ based on the webtoon of the same name, is a five-episode reality show depicting a brain game played by eight participants competing for a total prize of $300,000. The participants must compete in a survival game for 10 days in a locked room set with prices 100 times higher than the market rate, located on a separate set in Los Angeles, California, and the final survivor takes all the prize money.

Naver Webtoon stated that since the show features characters from diverse ethnicities, professions, and religions, it is expected to produce interesting results different from the previous Korean version of the web variety show.

Mark Avitralio, who has extensive editing experience in multiple Emmy Award-winning TV series, directed the show, and the American entertainment company Transparent Arts took charge of overall production.

Jinsu Bae, the writer of ‘Money Game,’ said, “I never imagined that a reality show based on my work would be created overseas,” adding, “It is especially meaningful because the program stays true to the original work. I truly feel that the status of webtoon IPs has risen not only in Korea but also internationally.”

Naver Webtoon actively participated in the planning and production stages of this web variety show. Based on their understanding of adapting webtoon IPs into video content, they contributed to enhancing the completeness of the content by leveraging the strengths of the original story and settings and adding fun to the game through overall processes such as rule setting and casting.

Kim Beomhyu, Head of Global IP Business at Naver Webtoon, said, “With the Korean version of the web variety show gaining great popularity, we have taken on a new challenge of producing variety content based on webtoon IP in the United States, the birthplace of reality shows,” and added, “We plan to showcase Naver Webtoon’s excellent IPs in various content formats to maximize synergy with the original works.”

Meanwhile, the original webtoon ‘Money Game’ is a thriller in which eight participants compete in a survival game for 100 days with a total prize of 44.8 billion won. It first began serialization on Naver Webtoon in 2018 and was praised for its sharp portrayal of the evils of capitalist society and primal human desires at the time of its release.

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