WEBTOON’s The Mafia Nanny is heading to television. According to the entertainment outlet Deadline, Hulu is developing a live-action series adaptation of the hit action-romance webcomic, with Charlize Theron on board as an executive producer.
The project was reported by Deadline on September 17 and has since circulated through the anime and comics press. If it moves forward as described, it would be a notable step for Western webcomic IP crossing into live-action — and a big one for an English-language WEBTOON original.
Who is making it
Max Gill is set to executive produce and will write the television adaptation. 20th Television, Secret Menu, WEBTOON Productions and Steady Collective are attached to produce.
The executive producer bench is deep. It includes Beth Kono, AJ Dix and Matt Maher for Secret Menu; David Madden and Sera Tabb for WEBTOON Productions; and Dawn Olmstead for Steady Collective, alongside Theron.
Deadline stated that the project is believed to be the first English-language live-action series adaptation of a WEBTOON IP — a claim that speaks to how aggressively the platform is now pushing its biggest English-language titles beyond the app.
The creative team behind the webcomic
The Mafia Nanny is written by Violet Matter, with art by sh00 and assistance from roousuu and Drawniels. It is one of the most successful English-language webtoons on the platform, having accumulated more than 420 million views globally.
Its reputation has extended to awards season as well. The webcomic was nominated for Best Webcomic at the Ringo Awards and for Digital Book of the Year at the Harvey Awards last year, and it has been nominated for Best Webcomic again this year at the Ringo Awards.
What The Mafia Nanny is about
WEBTOON describes the story as a nanny-thriller with a romantic pull:
Being an Elite Nanny is simple: protect the charge, obey the principle, and don’t get emotionally attached. Easier said than done when Davina’s first client is a dangerously compelling Venetian underboss who’s determined to get under her skin. What he wants from her, she can’t imagine, but Gabriel Angelini drags her back into the glittering world of organized crime she thought she’d left behind forever. She might get answers about her past if she digs deep enough, but can she protect Mikey from his father’s ambitions and keep her heart from getting tangled up in their treacherous web?
The premise — a professional tasked with protecting a child, pulled back into a criminal world she tried to escape — is structurally friendly to serialised television, which may explain why it drew a broadcast-scale development deal rather than a smaller adaptation.
Why it matters
Webcomics have become a serious pipeline for screen adaptations, and The Mafia Nanny is one of the highest-profile English-language originals to get that treatment. The involvement of a name like Theron as executive producer gives the project a level of industry visibility that most webcomic adaptations do not receive at the development stage.
It also lands at a volatile moment for the wider webtoon business. Kakao Entertainment is shutting down Tapas, ending a long-running North American webtoon push, while WEBTOON Entertainment has been restructuring its leadership, including naming two co-CEOs for Naver Webtoon. A marquee adaptation deal is the kind of success story platforms point to when arguing their English-language originals can travel beyond the app.
No release window, cast or episode count has been announced. Development deals regularly stop short of a green light, so the confirmed elements for now are the writers, producers and the platform attached.
Source: Anime News Network, citing Deadline.
Featured image: Key art for WEBTOON’s The Mafia Nanny, via WEBTOON.
