Exhuma Webtoon and Colony Game: New Expansion Strategies for Korean Film IP

The films 'Exhuma' and 'Colony' are pointing in the same direction. This is a method where a hit movie does not end at the theater but moves into webtoons, graphic novels, and games. This article analyzes how Korean film IP re-designs revenue and fandom touchpoints after a hit through the expansion cases of these two works.

The core of the draft was 'worldview expansion,' but the focus of the correction is more specific. 'Exhuma' moves the past of already verified characters into webtoon grammar, while 'Colony' uses its ongoing success as a starting point for subsequent media. Looking at the difference between the two cases, a signal is read that the Korean film industry is moving away from the stage of managing IP solely through the production of sequels.

'Exhuma's' calculation moved to webtoons 'Exhuma's' spin-off webtoon 'Maengjong' began serialization on Naver Webtoon at 10 PM on May 30. The central axis confirmed in official data is not re-explaining the events of the movie, but rather the high school days of Hwarim and Bonggil, and the process of how the two first formed a connection. The title 'Maengjong' also puts the meaning of unconditional following at the forefront, changing the shamanistic and occult sentiment of the movie into the long-term serialization rhythm of a webtoon.

This choice is important because the usage of the characters is different. In the movie, Hwarim and Bonggil left a strong impression, but within the running time, they could not extensively explain the beginning of their relationship. Webtoons are perfect for filling this gap. Using the faces and names the audience already knows as a starting point, readers consume the worldview again while following new events every week.

However, the key here is not a simple derivative product. Naver Webtoon's global reader touchpoint is wider than a movie theater, and vertical scroll horror utilizes the atmosphere and pauses between cuts rather than jump scares. Writer Haemuri's tense character relationship grammar and Director Jang Jae-hyun's early planning review can be seen as a device to re-translate the movie's sentiment into different media rules, rather than just an 'extra story borrowing the popularity of the original characters.'

'Colony' chose a game instead of a sequel However, the expansion of 'Colony' starts from a different point than 'Exhuma.' Following its release on May 21, 'Colony' recorded a cumulative total in the 4.12 million range as of the box office report on the morning of June 5, maintaining the number 1 spot on the box office for 15 consecutive days. If 'Exhuma' brought out the characters' past stories after hitting 10 million viewers, 'Colony' is a case of presenting media for a subsequent worldview while the hit is still in progress.

Comparison of the scale of success as a starting point for film IP expansion: Exhuma is a work that surpassed 10 million viewers, and Colony is a work in the 4.12 million range as of the report on the morning of June 5, 2026. The unit is 10,000 people. 050010001000 | 10,000+ | 412 range Exhuma | Colony Unit: 10,000 people

The direction revealed by Director Yeon Sang Ho is even clearer. His plan is to first create a blueprint of the worldview through graphic novels rather than film sequels, and based on this, develop an animation-style game. This is different from the strategy of making audiences wait for the next installment of the movie. It is an approach to turn the audience into players and convert the settings of a closed building and a collective infectious body into rules that can be directly manipulated.

Changes in OSMU revealed by the two cases When placing the differences between the two works side by side, it is visible that the usage of OSMU (One Source Multi Use) has also changed. If past OSMU was closer to a method of attaching the brand value of a hit work to other products, current expansion is closer to a method of newly arranging questions left by each medium. 'Exhuma' brings out the characters' past and relationships, while 'Colony' brings out the rules of the infectious bodies and survival gameplay.

In particular, 'Colony' is meaningful even within Director Yeon Sang Ho's zombie filmography. While 'Train to Busan' and 'Peninsula' expanded the zombie genre through moving spaces and collapsed worlds, 'Colony' puts forward the setting that the infectious bodies share a single consciousness and evolve. Even in the official trailer images, several figures are compressed in one space, and the title itself refers to a collectivized existence rather than individual monsters. The point suitable for gamification comes from here.

Conversely, 'Maengjong' expands the emotional lines and origin stories rather than moving the horror of the movie into action rules. Webtoon readers can follow why a character became that way for a long time rather than the conclusion of the incident. Even with the same film IP expansion, if 'Colony' widens the rules, 'Maengjong' is the side that digs deep into relationships.

The next checkpoint is the perfection of media transition For this flow to succeed, hit figures alone are not enough. 'Maengjong' must turn the charm of Hwarim and Bonggil that film fans know into the weekly immersion of webtoon readers, and the game of 'Colony' must persuade the movie's settings not as a simple promotional mini-game but as play rules. Worldview expansion is not completed just by sharing names.

Therefore, the next checkpoint is clear. The key is how much 'Maengjong' establishes the first connection of Hwarim and Bonggil as an independent story in the early episodes, and how 'Colony' turns the collective intelligence of the infectious bodies into a manipulation experience during the graphic novel and game announcement stages. The success or failure of the two works will serve as a testing ground to gauge whether Korean film IP can remain as a real asset outside the theater.