Wattpad Web Novel 'Chasing Red' Confirmed for Hollywood Film Production

Wattpad web novel 'Chasing Red' is being produced as a Hollywood film, drawing attention to the entry of Korean-style content production formulas into the U.S.

According to Naver Webtoon on the 27th, Isabel Ronin's English web novel 'Chasing Red', which has recorded a cumulative view count of 260 million on Wattpad, will be produced into a film of the same name early next year. The story deals with the romance between popular basketball star Caleb and independent woman Veronica.

The lead roles will be played by Madelaine Petsch from the Netflix series 〈Riverdale〉 and Gavin Casalegno from the Amazon Prime series 〈The Summer I Turned Pretty〉. Distributor Mister Smith Entertainment will handle global distribution.

The film will be released through Amazon Prime Video in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France, with plans to premiere in Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey, India, and more.

'Chasing Red' was also produced as an English original webtoon on Naver Webtoon in 2023, recording 24 million views. This is an example of applying the content expansion strategy verified in Korea—web novel → webtoon → video—to the U.S. market.

In Korea, works such as 〈The Youngest Son of a Conglomerate〉, 〈Emergency Center〉, and 〈The Story of Manager Kim Working at a Large Company in Seoul〉 have already achieved success with this formula. Since 2022, Naver Webtoon has been working on adapting popular works from Wattpad, a web novel platform under webtoon entertainment, into webtoons.

Works like 'The Owl and the Summer Sky', 'Float', 'Death is My BFF', and 'Love Bites' have also been produced as English webtoons and received positive responses.

An industry insider stated, "Hollywood is turning its eyes away from its reliance on existing comic IPs to secure new IPs," and predicted, "If the 'Chasing Red' film succeeds, webtoons will emerge as a strong alternative."

The industry expects that the Korean-style intellectual property value chain will become a focal point in the global entertainment market.