(Singapore) August 22, 2023 – Singapore’s Momo Film Co, a Beach House Pictures production company, has signed a co-production deal with Seoul-based Bros Studio to develop a slate of Kenaz webtoons into scripted content. The deal will see the two entertainment companies adapting the popular comics, designed specifically for mobile phones, and bringing them to life as television series for international audiences.
Webtoons, originally designed for mobile phones, have developed a massive global fanbase and are becoming an exciting Asian entertainment category that is experiencing fast-growing international success.
Kenaz is one of the leading platforms for webtoons in Korea and the first Korean studio to provide webtoon IP to Apple Books. Working with Bros, Kenaz is expanding its webtoon film and television productions.
“We are in the era of NFTs, AI, VR, and K-content, and I believe that webtoons is the medium that connects all of those trends and technologies,” said Woody Lee, CEO of Kenaz. “Webtoons not only has the potential to be a source of entertainment and content, but it also can become the source of technology and content such as NFTs and AI.”
Based in Seoul and Los Angeles, Bros is a leading Korean-American talent management company with an emphasis on cross-border content, acting as a bridge between Korea and Hollywood. Bros has a division exclusively focused on creating content based on webcomics IP.
“We are now seeing the global markets open up to viewing webtoon IPs, popular in their native digital format for many years in Korea, in motion-picture format,” says Joseph Jang, co-founder of Bros Studios. “We look forward to working alongside Momo Film Co. to bring more of those stories to the global viewing audience.”
This is the first foray into webtoons for Momo Film Co, a leading scripted Southeast Asian producer with an extensive background in award-winning content. The company is committed to collaborate closely with filmmakers and produce high-quality Asian drama for international viewers.
“We are thrilled to work on these incredible narratives that have large fan communities and look forward to getting more Asian IPs made and producing stories that need to be seen on screen,” adds Si En, Managing Director & Co-Founder of Momo, “The webtoon universe has a wealth of stories that we can tap into and working on Kenaz’s stories with Bros is a perfect partnership.”
The Webtoon projects immediately in development include Mirror Game and All About Money. In Mirror Game, it’s an ultimate race against time when a Master illusionist with devious intentions becomes a viral sensation after successfully hypnotizing people online. In All About Money three best friends unexpectedly come across one billion dollars and are thrown into the illicit world of crime and corruption.
The original webtoons written and illustrated by Sunny and Baolong (Mirror Game) and BaStards and Siho (All About Money) have been consistently selected by writers and studios as two of the top 5 Kenaz titles to be adapted into a series.
The projects will be backed by Beach House Pictures who have been rapidly increasing investment into scripted development and productions internationally, releasing the series Mr Midnight on Netflix in 2022 and recently announcing an Ink Factory development deal for a television series of the iconic 70s Singapore action trilogy, Cleopatra Wong.
“We are excited about supporting this unique collaboration between Singapore and Korea.” said Donovan Chan, Creative Director & Co-Founder of Beach House Pictures, “Together, we have plans to launch even more webtoon adapted series across Asia and bring these Asian IPs to territories beyond including the U.S. and the UK.”
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About Momo Film Co
Momo Film Co, part of Beach House Pictures, is a Singapore-based film and TV company founded in 2018. In a short span of a few years, Momo is now recognized as one of Southeast Asia’s key scripted producers with a track record of award-winning content and great relationships with streamers as well as buyers in Asia and beyond. The company is committed to collaborate closely with filmmakers and produce high-quality Asian drama for international viewers. Momo’s films regularly attend and open at prestigious markets and festivals such as Cannes Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Busan Film Festival, Berlinale, among others. Every piece of work is very precious to us. Our promise to stake out new territories with established international media partners and new creators to tell authentic Asian stories with taste and ambition. Momo is currently in development on various premium episodic series with Canal+, Studiocanal, Viu and Amazon Prime.
Beach House Pictures, a Blue Ant Media company, is one of Asia’s largest independent production companies, specializing in award-winning factual, entertainment, natural history and children’s content for the international market. Headquartered in Singapore, the company owns and operates several production businesses throughout Asia including Tokyo-based Vesuvius Pictures, Singapore’s Southeast Asian scripted producer Momo Film Co., the Mumbai-based factual production company, Riverland Entertainment and Space Lion Studios, a Dolby-certified, state-of-the-art post production facility in Singapore. The company’s recent productions include Mind Your Manners (Netflix), The Raincoat Killer (Netflix), Evolve (Curiosity, Prime Video), Best Dog India (Netflix), Uptown Otters (Animal Planet, Love Nature), MasterChef Singapore (Mediacorp, Motion Group) and Bake Off Japan (Prime Video). beachhousepictures.com
About Bros Studios
Bros Studio is a Korean-American talent management and content production media and entertainment company. In development are both scripted and non-scipted shows featuring top talent from both Korea and abroad. Bros’ talent roster includes high profile Hollywood talent, Academy award winning directors, and up and coming talent in Korea. Based in Seoul and Los Angeles, Bros’ emphasis is on cross border content, acting as a bridge between Korea & Hollywood and the rest of the world. The company is founded by four co-founders, Jae Man Choi, Kevin Lee, Joseph Jang, and Liana Kim. all who bring a wealth of experience in both talent management and content production.
About Kenaz
Kenaz is a webtoon studio and an IP holder. With 135 webtoon artists and 49 professional producers, Kenaz works as a studio-type CP (Content Provider) that produces 80 to 100 webtoons annually. Kenaz owns a total of 295 IPs, 124 which are in service and 72 which are in production to launch in 2023. Based on the accumulated webtoon IPs, Kenaz is expanding production to various secondary works (movies, dramas, games, etc.). Kenaz specializes not only in production but also in distribution. It recently became the MCP (Master Contents Provider) for Apple Books. Since its establishment, Kenaz has been expanding the parameter of webtoons, creating webtoon-based shorts, dramas, books, animations, music, and games, and co-producing with Hollywood writers.