Huayi Korea Strikes Content Production Pact With Wattpad

By Patrick Frater

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Digital entertainment firm Wattpad and talent agency Huayi Brothers Korea have partnered to adapt stories for film, TV and digital outlets.

Wattpad, an online community of readers and writers, will use machine learning software to sift through the 565 million stories it houses. The selected stories will be adapted for screen, with the two companies set as co-producers.

“Wattpad’s model is the future of entertainment, using technology to find great storytellers and bring them to an international audience,” said, Jay Ji, CEO, Huayi Brothers Korea.

“In an era of entertainment abundance, working with Wattpad means access to the most important things in the industry: a data-backed approach to development, and powerful, proven stories that audiences have already fall in love with.”

Previously known as SIM Entertainment, Huayi Brothers Korea is a talent company that has its own stock market listing in Korea and is predominantly owned by Chinese film studio Huayi Brothers Media. It represents talent including Kim Ok-bin, Han Sun-hwa, and Kin Yoon-seok.

Wattpad has a slate of over 20 films in the works in Indonesia with streaming platform iflix. It produces ‘Light as a Feather,” with AwesomenessTV and Grammnet for Hulu in the U.S. Its feature film “After,” based on Anna Todd’s best-selling novel, will hit theatres on April 12, 2019.