Philippines Hit Online Fiction Series 'Kiss Master' Gets Series Adaptation: What Wattpad and Kumu's Latest Content Adaptation Effort Means for the Future of TV

By Jessica Chen

(Photo : Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

For those of you who grew up with the internet, perhaps no website is as infamous as Wattpad for sordid boy band-inspired fanfiction that catered to the preteen demographic.

(For those of you who don't know what we're referencing, we'll refer you to the best example of this phenomenon we can rememeber: This particular story is about a girl whose mother sells her to One Direction as some kind of slave, but the strange genre that cropped up varied in motivation and recipient of said slave.)

However, in recent years, it seems that Wattpad is growing to become the latest source of IP for fan-driven adaptations - the latest of these being the Philippines hit online fiction story Kiss Master, which has recently been announced to receive a series adaptation as the first joint production between Wattpad and Kumu.

Written by Jamille Fumah, who goes by JF Stories on Wattpad, Kiss Master is a romantic fantasy centering around the no-nonsense Sussie and bad boy billionaire Arkanghel Wolfgang. Currently, the story has 7.8 millions reads.

Fumah herself has 1.6 million followers and has written 34 works, making her one of Wattpad's most successful writers from the Philippines.

As reported by Variety, due to the large fan fervor towards the original Kiss Master series, Wattpad and Kumu seem poised to bring in fan involvement, by giving fans the ability "to influence the project's other casting and storyline."

Main cast members for Kiss Master were already revealed to include Kaori Oinuma as Sussie, Kyle Echarri as Arkhangel, and Joao Constancia as Hugo.

As seen on the Kiss Master Wattpad page, here's a description of the story:

"Arkanghel was once a sweet and naughty high school boy who was head over heels for the chubby and no-nonsense girl, Sussie. He's as loyal as a dog who follows her around, but that was before she gave him up. The charming boy who taught her young heart to love and gave her her first kiss is now the cold and arrogant CEO of a massive company. And aside from being unreachable now... Arkanghel detests her to boot."

Kiss Master isn't the first Wattpad property to be adapted into film. Previously, Wattpad properties, such as the After series and The Kissing Booth trilogy, received film adaptations in the U.S.

With Kiss Master receiving a series adaptation with an aim for multi-platform distribution, it seems that the TV industry may be getting more and more comfortable looking to Wattpad and fanfiction at large as a source of preteen-approved IP.