ShootAround Is Getting a Live Action Film. That Is a Big Deal for WEBTOON.

WEBTOON's ShootAround is getting a live action film, with Lion Forge Entertainment and Webtoon Productions developing the YA adaptation and Aiyana K. White attached to write the script. According to Korea JoongAng Daily's Apr. 30 report, the series began as an English language webtoon on Naver's platform and had passed 28 million views at press time. That global first origin is the part executives should be paying closest attention to right now. That alone makes this more than another rights pickup. It is a clean example of Korean platform IP moving outward instead of simply feeding the domestic drama machine. We have spent months watching webtoon companies chase bigger screen ambitions. This one stands out because the source material was already designed for global readers, which gives ShootAround a different kind of runway if the film lands.

ShootAround already had the exact genre hook Hollywood likes

ShootAround was always easy to pitch in one line: a high school girls basketball team and their coach try to survive a zombie outbreak. That mix of sports energy, teen ensemble chemistry, and horror tension is why the property feels so adaptable. The official English series page on WEBTOON currently lists 28.2 million views and more than 178,000 subscribers, while Dread Central framed the project as a "Zombieland meets Bring It On" kind of play in its early pickup coverage. According to Korea JoongAng Daily, the comic ran from 2015 to 2017, which means this is not a brand new viral hit being rushed into production. It is an older library title with proven reader memory. Reddit recommendation threads still bring it up as a cult favorite, and that kind of long tail fandom is exactly what gives adaptation executives confidence.

The bigger story is WEBTOON's cross market adaptation strategy

This announcement matters because it pushes WEBTOON deeper into a cross market adaptation lane that already looked aggressive in our earlier reporting on webtoons taking over 2026 screens. Variety reported that Aiyana K. White is rewriting a previous draft by Mike Dow and Devon Kelly, which suggests the project is being treated like a serious feature development process instead of a quick option headline. That is the right move. ShootAround is not arriving with the giant mainstream name recognition of The Remarried Empress or Sweet Home, so the screenplay has to sell the tone cleanly and make the team dynamic matter. As reported by Variety, White's recent credits include Severance and The Night Agent. That is a smart kind of writer to place on a project that needs pace, character tension, and enough emotional control to keep the horror from turning disposable.

Why this English origin angle gives the project extra value

Most webtoon adaptation headlines still move in a Korea to Korea pattern. A Korean platform launches a hit, local producers package it, and a streamer turns it into a K drama. ShootAround bends that formula. It was published in English first on a Korean owned platform, then developed into a live action feature with a North American company in the mix. That gives the property a built in international logic that a lot of adaptation stories have to manufacture later. It also fits the broader industry reset we flagged in our look at webtoons entering their AI era, where platforms are thinking more like full stack media businesses than reading apps. Lion Forge gets a zombie story with a clear teen hook. WEBTOON gets another proof point that its back catalog can travel. If the film works, expect more English facing webtoon titles to move from archive status into adaptation meetings very quickly.