After Solo Leveling, 5 Webtoons Poised to Become Warner Bros.' Next Billion-Dollar Franchises

Solo Leveling blew the doors off, and now the ripple effect is hitting Western animation. Warner Bros. Animation has quietly teamed up with Webtoon Entertainment to adapt a batch of hit webtoons. Variety flagged the deal, and the first wave includes four ongoing series with a fifth likely circling the runway. The plan, per additional reports, is to roll out a total of 10 projects. Translation: this is not a one-off.

So what exactly is getting adapted?

Here are the titles you should have on your radar, plus one that feels inevitable:

• "Hardcore Leveling Warrior" – If you live for VR game worlds, this is squarely in your lane. Think the post-SAO, post-Shangri-La Frontier boom where game mechanics drive character arcs. The lead, Gong Won-Ho, gets in-game assassinated and is dumped back to Level 1. From there, it is a ruthless grind back up, a classic zero-to-hero rebuild that thrives on skill checks and ego bruises.
• "The Stellar Swordmaster" – Dark fantasy with some bite. It starts with Vlad, a street-smart orphan, and escalates fast once he bonds with a sentient sword. The appeal is watching him claw up a brutal social and supernatural hierarchy. Fans already rate this one highly, and I would not be shocked if it turns into a flagship IP once animated.
• "Down to Earth" – A curveball in the best way. This one is a sci-fi romance/slice-of-life about Kade, a lonely guy still nursing a rough breakup, and Zaida, a naive alien whose ship crash-lands in his backyard. Their awkward, tender, slowly-evolving relationship is the hook. If you are into the offbeat energy of something like Dandadan, this scratches a similar itch, just with more warmth than chaos.
• "Elf & Warrior" – Fantasy comfort food with a twist. An elf and a human warrior meet during a robbery, then tumble into a questing partnership full of banter, brawls, and slow-burn camaraderie. It is action-forward but keeps the humor and character beats front and center, which should play nicely in animation.
• "unOrdinary" (likely next) – Not officially confirmed yet, but it is one of the biggest names in the mix, and skipping it would be a wild choice. The setup: in a world where superpowered hierarchies rule everything, a student with ridiculous abilities hides them, not for some grand destiny, but to opt out of the oppressive system. That peace does not last once he starts high school and the social order closes in.

Why this matters (and why it is a little surprising)

Webtoons fueling animation is not new, but Warner Bros. Animation stepping in at this scale is a statement. The goal is reportedly 10 series out of this partnership, which lines up with how hungry streamers and studios are for built-in fanbases. And after Solo Leveling steamrolled expectations, you do not need a spreadsheet to see the business case.

A small note for expectations: these are animated adaptations, not necessarily Japanese productions. But the DNA of a few of these (especially the VR-inflected stuff) clearly overlaps with what anime fans already love, which could make for a clean crossover audience if the execution lands.

The bottom line

Four are in motion, unOrdinary feels like a matter of time, and there are five more slots beyond that. If even half of these hit, we are looking at a real pipeline from digital comics to mainstream animation. Curious where you land on this: are we at the start of a new wave of webtoon-to-screen hits, or does anime still own the lane no matter who shows up? Drop your take.