Wattpad, a top user-contributed fiction app, is combining its TV, film and books division with the studio operations of digital comics platform Webtoon. The combo comes a month after South Korea-based Naver, Webtoon’s owner, closed the $600 million acquisition of Wattpad.
Naver said it will fund the newly merged Wattpad Webtoon Studios with a commitment of $100 million for development and production financing — aiming to produce a broad new slate of fan-driven entertainment on a global basis.
Wattpad Webtoon Studios will be led by president Aron Levitz (pictured above), who has overseen Wattpad Studios since it was formed in 2016. The new division has more than 100 TV and film projects in development or production with partners around the world, as well as a slate of books and international imprints. It will mine stories from among Webtoon and Wattpad’s combined audience of more than 166 million users.
“We’re bringing a new era of diverse voices and incredible IP to audiences and an industry looking for both,” Levitz said in a statement. “Businesses are spending billions of dollars to capture the last 100 years of IP.
