Devsisters, the South Korean mobile games developer behind the Cookie Run franchise, has begun production on a full-length animated feature film based on the property, with a global theatrical release set for 2029. The announcement is being read as more than a single studio's diversification play: it signals a broader shift in South Korea's games industry towards franchise-building strategies that span entire content ecosystems.
What Cookie Run is worth — and what it could become
Cookie Run is a bona fide mega-franchise. Launched in 2012 on the Kakao platform, the series — which expanded into titles including Cookie Run: OvenBreak and Cookie Run: Kingdom — has accumulated over 200m cumulative downloads worldwide. Cookie Run: Kingdom in particular has charted among top-grossing titles in North American and South-East Asian markets, cultivating a global fanbase in the process. The colourful cast of cookie-themed characters has also proved fertile ground for secondary content: merchandise, webtoons and pop-up retail experiences have all demonstrated the kind of consumer spending power that typically underpins a successful leap to the screen.
Why film, and why now
The adaptation of game intellectual property into film and television is a global phenomenon gathering pace. Nintendo's The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) grossed over $1.3bn at the worldwide box office, firmly establishing the commercial case for animated features built on gaming franchises. Netflix's Arcane — based on Riot Games' League of Legends universe — won multiple Emmy Awards, setting a new creative benchmark for the convergence of gaming and screen content.
South Korean developers have taken note. Krafton is developing visual content derived from its Battlegrounds franchise, while Nexon has pursued animated adaptations of MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter Online. Devsisters' decision reflects both a calculated response to this industry-wide momentum and an internal conviction that Cookie Run's character-driven world-building is a particularly natural fit for the animated medium.
The structural challenges ahead
The optimism is tempered by hard realities. Feature animation is among the most capital-intensive and time-consuming formats in entertainment, typically requiring four to six years in production and budgets running into the tens of billions of Korean won. Devsisters has proven credentials as a game developer, but it has no experience producing theatrical animation. Co-production with an established external studio — or a full creative partnership with an overseas animation house — appears all but inevitable. How the company manages intellectual property control and creative direction within such an arrangement will be a decisive variable.
Global distribution presents an equally steep challenge. The Mario film benefited from the vast theatrical network of Universal Pictures; for a Korean game developer to assemble an equivalent distribution infrastructure independently would be an enormous undertaking. Pre-emptive partnerships with streaming platforms — Netflix or Disney+ among them — are widely cited as the more practical route to global audiences.
The fanbase: asset and arbiter
Cookie Run's devoted fan community is simultaneously the project's greatest advantage and its most exacting judge. The franchise's followers are deeply invested in individual character narratives and the series' broader mythology; any perceived deviation from established lore risks a severe backlash. The cautionary tale is Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), whose character design was completely overhauled after an initial trailer provoked a fan revolt. Devsisters will need to build a careful community-engagement strategy from the earliest stages of production, not as an afterthought.
Is 2029 a credible deadline?
Measured from 2025, a 2029 release implies a four-year production window — consistent with the average timelines of established animation studios. Yet given that Devsisters is still assembling partnerships, developing a screenplay and constructing its technical pipeline, some industry observers regard the schedule as tight. The consensus view is that the timeline matters less than the question of who makes the film and how: the choice of partner and production approach will ultimately determine both quality and commercial performance.
A pivotal moment for Korean gaming's global ambitions
Devsisters' venture is a test case for how far Korean gaming intellectual property can travel in the global cultural content market. K-pop and Korean drama have already made deep inroads with consumers around the world. Whether K-game intellectual property can achieve comparable resonance in the cinema — the most universal of cultural formats — is a question that 2029 will begin to answer. Success would establish a new strategic template for the South Korean games industry as a whole. Even failure would leave behind accumulated expertise and infrastructure on which the next attempt could build. Either way, the industry is already watching closely for Devsisters' next move.