Kakao Entertainment will bring two of its webtoons to Thailand through GMMTV, unveiling Thai television adaptations of “Itaewon Class” and “Seol Gongchan” at GMMTV’s “GMMTV NEXT: GENERATION HAPPY” production presentation on November 3.
The Thai version of “Itaewon Class” will carry the working title “ITAEWON CLASS THAI EDITION.” It will be the fourth national version of the story, following the original Korean version, the Japanese version and the Taiwanese version. A broadcast date has not yet been announced.
One notable change has already been confirmed for the Thai edition. The male chairman character Jang Dae-hee will be reimagined as a female character, a shift that signals GMMTV is not planning a straight copy of the earlier versions.
The report also named Film Rachanun, Sky Wongravee and Nycha Nuttanicha in connection with the Thai project, but it did not assign their roles. That means the identity of the Thai version’s Park Sae-ro-yi, the central character at the heart of the original story, has not been confirmed in the material available.
The second adaptation takes a different genre direction. “Seol Gongchan” will become the Thai horror romance “The Spooky Love Tale,” with Thipakorn Thitathan playing Chan and Pakin Kunaanuwit playing Min. Tossaphon Riantong will direct the series.
The scale of the original “Itaewon Class” helps explain why it keeps travelling. The webtoon ran on KakaoPage from 2016 to 2020 and recorded more than 420 million views in Korea. It was then made into the 2020 Korean television drama, followed by the 2022 Japanese version “Roppongi Class” and a Taiwanese HBO original, “Fired Up!,” in July this year. Japan has also adapted the story as a musical.
“Seol Gongchan” is a smaller but still substantial property, with 20 million views on KakaoPage. Pairing it with “Itaewon Class” in the same announcement shows Kakao Entertainment using both a proven flagship title and a more distinctive genre work to widen its footprint in Thailand, rather than relying on a single hit.
Kakao Entertainment said its representative works and distinctive titles continue to be developed for the screen, and that it plans to keep expanding global market opportunities by drawing on its diverse library of intellectual property. With broadcast timing still to be announced, the next details to watch are the confirmed casting for the Thai Park Sae-ro-yi and the premiere dates for both series.
