Disney Buys Into Webtoon
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The Walt Disney Co. will acquire a 2% equity stake in Webtoon Entertainment Inc., a digital comic and novel platform operator owned by South Korea’s internet giant Naver Corp., as they team up to build a new digital comics platform featuring the US entertainment giant’s marquee brands, including Marvel and Star Wars.
Sookyung Seo at The Korea Economic Daily reports on the partnership:
The service will unite more than 35,000 titles from Marvel, Star Wars, Disney Studios, Pixar and 20th Century Studios under one subscription, marking Disney’s first dedicated digital comics platform in the company’s over 100-year history.
Founded in 2005, Webtoon is the parent company of Seoul-based Naver Webtoon Corp., one of the world’s largest online comics platforms. It is 60.6% owned by Naver and 24.4% by LY Corp., formerly Line Yahoo.
The company has 155 million monthly active users in more than 150 countries, with 24 million creators contributing content.
Dean Seal for The Wall Street Journal reports (or here):
Webtoon will operate a new digital platform housing all of Disney’s various comic brands, including Marvel and Star Wars.
The companies said Monday that they have signed a non-binding term sheet for development of the new platform, which will feature current comic book runs and decades of older comics from across Disney’s portfolio.
In conjunction with the collaboration, Disney has signed a non-binding term sheet to acquire a 2% equity interest in Webtoon, though the companies have yet to reach a definitive agreement.
Shares of Webtoon soared 75% to $26.20 after hours.
From Lee Kyung-tak at Chosun Biz:
Disney+ subscribers will be able to access select titles on the new platform at no additional cost. The service targets global distribution, and some titles will be localized and made available on WEBTOON Entertainment’s Korean and Japanese services.
WEBTOON Entertainment and Disney said last month that they had announced a global content partnership to present about 100 flagship Disney franchise titles as vertical-scroll webtoons. The new agreement strengthens the collaboration.
From Heidi MacDonald at The Beat for a more comics-centric take:
In addition to decades of existing Disney brand related comics, “DISNEYTOON” will include a selection of WEBTOON Original stories. And it will be a mix of both vertical scrolling and traditional page-based comics formats. Current runs are part of the service, but Marvel Unlimited offers a three month wait before digital versions of Marvel become available, so probably no day and date.
It’s not too hard to see this as Disney’s recognition that scrolling mobile comics are a great way to reach young consumers – some comics will be localized for WEBTOON’S Korean and Japanese platforms, as well, so it’s a chance at global reach. Clearly, more to come.
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