This recognition follows WEBTOON Entertainment’s IPO earlier this year and the growing influence of WEBTOON content in entertainment and pop culture.
LOS ANGELES & SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 24, 2024–(BUSINESS WIRE)–JoonKoo Kim, founder and CEO of WEBTOON Entertainment, has been named to Bloomberg Businessweek’s prestigious ScreenTime Ones to Watch List for 2024. Kim has been recognized as one of the world’s most influential media and entertainment business and creative leaders on Bloomberg Businessweek’s ScreenTime Ones to Watch List as a visionary business leader and innovator whose contributions will define pop culture in 2024.
Kim joins other media and entertainment industry leaders like Tubi CEO Anjali Sadh and pop sensations like Chapel Roan and Renée Rapp on the 2024 list. Previous notable names on the list include James Gunn (co-CEO of DC Studios), visual artist Buck Ellison and recording artist Ice Spice.
Kim’s valuation comes after WEBTOON’s high-profile IPO in June 2024, which exposed the company’s global reach to investors around the world. Founded in 2005, Kim first developed WEBTOON as a way to help comic creators reach new fans. WEBTOON’s innovation, a mobile vertical-scrolling webcomic experience, became a hit among creators and fans around the world, helping the comic industry transition into the digital age and attract a new generation of digital-native fans. Since then, WEBTOON’s Creator Economy has provided an unparalleled economic opportunity and value proposition to creators around the world, paying out $2.8 billion to creators between 2017 and 2023.
The company has built a vast global IP and creator ecosystem of affiliated companies and platforms across webcomics, webnovels, television, film, publishing, merchandise and more. With two studios, Wattpad WEBTOON Studios in Hollywood and Studio N in Korea, WEBTOON’s entertainment business produces a string of streaming hits as well as developing new projects with some of the most exciting names in Hollywood. Recent hits include Netflix projects such as The 8 Show and Sweet Home, both produced by Studio N, and Through My Window from Wattpad WEBTOON Studios.
Upcoming projects include “Sidelined: The QB and Me,” a Tubi Original based on the Wattpad story of the same name, starring TikTok superstars Noah Beck and James Van Der Beek, “Death of a Pop Star” starring Oscar winner Diablo Cody, “Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell” with Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment, “Freaking Romance” with Skybound Entertainment, and many more.
The Screen Time Watch list will be published in the October 2024 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. Kim will also appear at Bloomberg’s 2024 Screen Time event in Los Angeles on October 9 and 10.
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About WEBTOON Entertainment
WEBTOON Entertainment is a leading global entertainment company and operator of one of the world’s largest storytelling platforms. As the global leader and pioneer of the mobile webcomic format, WEBTOON Entertainment has transformed comics and visual storytelling for fans and creators.
With the CANVAS UGC platform enabling anyone to become a creator, and WEBTOON Entertainment’s ever-growing roster of superstar WEBTOON Originals creators and series, its passionate fanbase is the new face of pop culture. WEBTOON’s animated adaptations are available on Netflix, Prime Video, Crunchyroll and other screens around the world, and the company’s content partners include Discord, HYBE, DC Comics and many more.
WEBTOON Entertainment has approximately 170 million monthly active users (as of the quarter ending March 31, 2024) and its IP and creator ecosystem of partner companies includes WEBTOON, Wattpad, the world’s leading web novel platform, Wattpad WEBTOON Studios, Studio N, Studio LICO, WEBTOON Unscrolled, LINE MANGA, and eBookJapan.
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