‘All Of Us Are Dead’ Creator Talks Webtoon Business, Netflix’s Second Season & 11-Year Adaptation Journey
EXCLUSIVE: When webtoon artist Joo Dong-geun published All of Us Are Dead on Korean platform Naver in 2011, he never expected that it would take 11 years for his zombie story to be turned into a series — one that also became the first Korean show to rank number one on its global top 10 list after Squid Game achieved the feat.
In those 11 years, Joo witnessed how Korean studios and companies awakened to the financial and artistic potential of Korean zombie IP after the success of Train to Busan and Kingdom, as well as the global recognition of Korean webtoons after their adaptations into some of the streamers’ most successful shows. Some of these shows include Disney+’s Moving as well as Netflix’s Sweet Home.
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In a way, the long webtoon-to-series journey of All of Us Are Dead reflects some of the biggest shifts in the adaptation business in Korea’s entertainment industry, as well as the new roles that webtoon artists play in the content production pipeline of global streaming platforms.
All of Us Are Dead was renewed by Netflix for a second season in June 2022. Joo told Deadline that he has had little involvement in the development of Season 2 so far.
“I’m ready to help them if they ask me, but they have their own team,” he said. “I don’t really go out of my way trying to help them, but I’m ready if they call me. However, I do receive a lot of information and updates about what’s happening in the development because I am the webtoon creator. If there’s an opportunity, I would also like to go and see the film set.”
Season 1 centered on high school students in a fictional South Korean city who struggle to survive amidst a zombie outbreak.
Joo spoke to Deadline on the sidelines of his ‘Artist Talk,’ organized by the Korean Cultural Centre UK as part of its “Korean Culture Month 2024” and held in partnership with Foyles.
Joo has also just signed a contract to turn All of Us Are Dead into a musical in Korea, and plans are also underway for an All of Us Are Dead theme park attraction in Everland, which is Korea’s largest theme park.
All of Us Are Dead is also currently being translated into Spanish, Italian, French and Japanese, with books in these languages set to be released.
The 11-year journey from webtoon to Netflix series
When Joo started drawing the webtoon in 2009, he was very determined for All of Us Are Dead to be turned into Korea’s first zombie film. There were no Korean zombie films or shows back then and Joo said that he was inspired by British pic 28 Days Later and American film Dawn of the Dead.
“In my webtoon, there’s not a single word of ‘zombie’ in it, because around that time, it wasn’t a word that people would be familiar with in Korea,” said Joo.
Joo said that his zombie story, set in a high school, did not feature any guns and he wanted his characters to make use of their environment to fight the zombies, including using sports equipment, chairs, tables as well as gadgets in the school’s AV room.
When he published the webtoon in 2011 after working on it for more than two years, he received offers from over 10 film companies and studios for the film production rights to his webtoon.
However, when Joo took several meetings with them to get a better sense of their proposals, it became clear to him that the time was not yet right for All of Us Are Dead to be adapted for screen.
“The companies didn’t really have a good idea about how to dramatize the story or sell them to investors,” Joo said. “It was discouraging and I thought that if the situation is like this, then I don’t want to sell the production rights to my webtoon to anyone. I knew that the technology will keep improving so I had faith that the webtoon will be able to sell to a good company one day.”
Another thing that encouraged Joo was the amount of emails and comments he received from his webtoon’s teenage readers. He said that many wrote to him with remarks along the lines of, “When I grow up, I will make this into a film. Don’t sell this to anyone before that.”
Joo said that these comments gave him the assurance that at least, he can wait for the younger generation of readers to grow up and one of them would be able to turn All of Us Are Dead into a worthy screen adaptation.
“One of them actually did. During the production of the Netflix series, one of the production staff came up to me and told me that she had grown up a fan,” said Joo.
In 2015, director Lee Jae-gyu contacted Joo for a meeting. At that time, Lee had directed the The Fatal Encounter film as well as series like Beethoven Virus and The King 2 Hearts. Joo was surprised by Lee’s plan to turn the webtoon into a series, not a film. Joo was concerned that domestic content regulations restricting horror and gore on television would end up making All of Us Are Dead too mild or gentle.
However, when Yeon Sang-ho’s blockbuster Train to Busan took the global box office by storm in 2016, the Korean industry awakened to the economic beast of Korean zombie IP. “While I was personally a bit disappointed that my webtoon lost the chance to become the first Korean zombie film, I realized that Train to Busan helped the industry to see that zombie stories can make lots of money.”
Netflix initially declined Lee and Joo’s first proposal for All of Us Are Dead, replying that they were already making Kingdom, a zombie series set in the 17th century and based on Kim Eun-hee’s webtoon titled The Kingdom of the Gods.
A few years later and after several leadership changes in Netflix’s content team, Lee provided a new proposal and was successful this time — All of Us Are Dead would finally be turned into a series.
‘Waiting was the best choice I made’
Despite the long journey to turn All of Us Are Dead into a series, Joo is adamant that he has no regrets. “If we had just gone ahead and tried to make a series back in 2015 or 2016, it would have been with a Korean broadcasting company instead of Netflix and turned out differently,” said Joo. “A great opportunity came at the right time when people were ready for a zombie series and it was also a good time for a bit of risk as well. It was after Squid Game, so the timing was perfect. Waiting was the best choice that I made.”
When asked about what he thought of Netflix’s adaptation of his webtoon, Joo said: “I am 80% satisfied with the Netflix series. Some of my favorite parts include the library and cafeteria scenes. However, I felt that some of the best parts of the webtoon didn’t make it into the series. For example, the archery club had a much bigger and more significant role in the webtoon compared to the series.”
The business of webtoons
With business pressure to reduce risk and shorten development timelines, Korean studios and streamers have turned to adapting webtoons into series and films, given how successful webtoons will already come with a built-in fanbase and audience, as well as a proven track record.
“What I hear nowadays is that webtoon artists will start working with the aim of making their webtoons into a series or film and that some artists will already have a kind of contract to turn their webtoon into a drama while they are still working on the webtoon,” Joo said.
“Another trend is to start with a web novel and if it becomes successful, the author will be given a contract to develop a webtoon as well as a dramatization deal.
“As an investor or production company, this is good for them because they can start with a storyline that has actually been confirmed as successful, while also carrying on the fandom of the storyline. Dramatization happens very quickly now in Korea and this is beneficial for both the production companies and webtoon artists,” said Joo.
There are also more conversations now among webtoon artists about navigating contracts and compensation to ensure that they benefit from the success of shows based on their webtoon IP, after the famous example of Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk not receiving royalties from making Netflix’s biggest hit.
“I didn’t get rich from All of Us Are Dead, but I did get recognition and have been invited to a lot of places,” Joo said. “Like the director of Squid Game, who said that he didn’t earn much money from it, he said that Netflix will give him a better deal next time. I’m similar in a way, because I now have more hopes and expectations for the next work that I’m going to do and contract-wise, I will put more expectations on it as more people have trust in me and my work.
“At the same time, I try not to think too much about the financial gains from this. Naturally, I will work really hard and the wealth will come in one way or the other. At the end of the day, my role is to try to make the best art possible.”
He also said that the most lucrative genres for webtoons these days skew towards “school life, fantasy and romance.” On his dream collaborators, Joo said that he would love to work with directors Bong Joon-ho or Na Hong-jin (The Wailing) in future.
For now, he can sit back in the knowledge his venture into the zombie genre changed Korean streaming TV forever.
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