Netflix has commissioned a live-action adaptation of Solo Leveling, the popular South Korean fantasy web novel and webtoon. After securing the rights to the anime franchise, the streamer cast up-and-coming actor Byeon Woo-seok in the television series, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Byeon, who’s one of Korea’s most in-demand young stars, has long been a fan-favorite choice to play Sung Jin-woo, the brooding antihero, in the anticipated fantasy-action show. The actor bears a striking visual presence to the character. The character went from being the weakest hunter in the land to humanity’s last hope against supernatural annihilation.

The live-action series will be based on the smash hit web novel that was first published on KakaoPage in 2016. Solo Leveling has garnered 14.3 billion cumulative views globally across its various formats. As a result, it has maintained its position as the platform’s No. 1 web novel and webtoon.

Solo Leveling was then developed into a web series. h-goon wrote, and Dubu, CEO of Redice Studio, and D&C Webtoon, created the art for the project. KakaoPage released the project in 2018.

Earlier this year, the franchise’s anime adaptation made history as the first Korean IP-based series to sweep the 2025 Crunchyroll Anime Awards. The anime won nine trophies, including Anime of the Year, Best Action and Best Character.

Solo Leveling is set in a world where portals known as Gates connect reality to deadly alternate dimensions. At first, Jin-woo is an E-rank hunter who’s barely strong enough to survive low-level missions.

But after a brutal dungeon raid nearly kills him, he awakens with a mysterious new ability: he can level up in power through combat, in which he can gain strength faster than anyone before him. As he grows, so does the scale of the threat he faces — monstrous invaders pouring from the Gates who threaten to obliterate humanity itself.