Prime Video has ordered an adult animated series adaptation of megahit online comic Lore Olympus from The Jim Henson Company and WEBTOON Productions. 

Created by New Zealand artist Rachel Smythe, Lore Olympus is online comic giant WEBTOON’s most popular title, with 1.4 billion views. It retells the story of the ancient Greek goddess Persephone, who becomes queen of the underworld after being abducted by Hades. The series is meant to capture both a YA audience and an older crowd, and the hope is it’ll have broad appeal, Halle Stanford, executive producer, tells Kidscreen. 

Henson already had a writer attached and several animation tests completed. The studio was basically ready to take the 2D-animated series into production as soon as it got a greenlight, according to a previous Kidscreen interview with Stanford. Lisa Henson is also executive producing, with WEBTOON Productions’ David Madden, Sydney Bright and Aron Levitz. Delaney Shiokari is in place as the executive in charge of production, and Julia Cooperman (Willow) is a showrunning, writing and executive producing. 

Prime Video will exclusively premiere the series worldwide, bringing another red-hot IP into a YA content library that already includes animated series Hazbin Hotel and live-action adaptation The Summer I Turned Pretty. 

Not only does Lore Olympus have a huge WEBTOON audience, but WEBTOON Productions has already built a strong licensing business around the IP. Products run the gamut from including apparel and figures, to postcards and physical books (volume nine launched at Barnes & Noble in October). 

More broadly, this deal is a major milestone for webtoons, which are becoming a sought-after commodity among kids & family companies. Whether it’s Disney buying a 2% stake in WEBTOON and creating a co-branded app, or WB Animation partnering with the platform to co-produce 10 projects based on its popular titles, there is a lot of interest in bringing these scrollable stories onto bigger screens right now.