Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- Popular South Korean actors Lee Byung-hun and Park Seo-jun and actress Park Bo-young will star in the film adaptation of "Happy Boy," a mystery science fiction webcomic series published by Lehzin Comics, a webcomics service operator.

Web cartoons, widely known as webtoons or webcomics, are digital comic books created to fit into web or mobile platforms. South Korea is the birthplace of webtoons, with its webtoon market valued at one trillion won ($841 million). South Korean digital comic books are popular in East Asia.

Lezhin Comics said in a statement that Lee Byung-hun, Park Se-jun and Park Bo-young will play the main roles in "Concrete Utopia" (working title) to be released in 2021. Director Uhm Tae-hwa will produce the sci-fi film. Happy Boy, the original story created by Kim Sung-nyung, depicts a story about a group of high school students that struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic environment after an unknown event has devastated the world. 

"I'm looking forward to seeing how the movie depicts the change people go through when placed in extreme situations and the themes of preserving one's humanity in the process," Kim was quoted as saying.

Lezhin Comics provides online and mobile webcomics services in South Korea and other countries such as the United States, Japan and France. Being consumed anywhere using smartphones, digital cartoon content has become a daily necessity, especially among young people.

Lezhin Studios, the video content-making wing of Lezhin Comics, will produce the film adaptation of Happy Boy. It is currently working on the remake version of D.P Dog's Day, one of Lezhin Comics' most-read webtoon series, that will be released through Netflix in 2021. Lezhin Studios is also producing three webtoon-based films including "Hell" (working title), a Netflix Original film scheduled for release in 2021.