Dreamcide, a popular webtoon featuring zombies, will be produced as a television series in 2018. The pre-production of the drama adaptation has not started yet but the production team has already been announced—composed of an award-winning film director, talented drama director, and Korea’s best visual effects studio with the aim to create the first ever ‘cinematic drama’ in South Korea. The upcoming adaptation is hyped as Hallyu’s next big hit that will follow in the footsteps of Descendants of the Sun.

Dreamcide is a webtoon written by Hong Jung-hoon who authored the novel of the same name on which the webtoon is based. It centers on a high school boy who travels seven years into the future through his dreams and witnesses the outbreak of zombies that will wreck havoc with the world. He then uses his ability to change the future in an attempt to prevent the proliferation of zombies and destruction of the world at all cost. A story of love, friendship, and human survival, both the webtoon and novel has gained the attention of 1.4 million subscribers.

The drama adaptation alone is a huge news for the fans of the webtoon and novel, so when it is announced that the big names in the field of film and drama unite to make the project, the anticipation has become very high. Touted as the first film and drama collaboration project in South Korea, Dreamcide boasts of film director and screenwriter Kim Yong-hwa as the executive producer. Director Kim, who is also the CEO of the production company that will handle the drama’s visual effects, proved himself to be a respected personality in the film industry after he won Best Director at four prestigious awards ceremony in Korea—including Blue Dragon Film and Grand Bell Awards—in 2009 for his popular film Take Off. Joining with him to direct the drama is Kim Hong-sun, who directed the hit crime thriller Voice of OCN earlier this year. Meanwhile, writer Kwon Soon-gyu (Jackpot, Warrior Baek Dong Soo) will handle the screenplay.

Monster Union will manage the project while Dexter Studios will handle the visual effects. Monster Union was established by KBS in 2016 as an independent TV content production company that will produce competitive and high-quality content in the international market. The two recent dramas created by the company are The Best Hit and Seven Day Queen. Meanwhile, Dexter Studios is another production company which will be working with Monster Union to provide state-of-the-art visual effects to the drama. Pre-production of Dreamcide is set to begin in the second half of 2017 and the production will start early next year to have the drama aired by the second half of 2018.

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