Disney and Tencent are writing a Chinese Star Wars webnovel

Photograph: Agnieszka Kowalczyk via Unsplash

Star Wars has never made it big in China, but Disney has found a possible solution. Disney China and Tencent's China Literature (Yuewen) are working together to create a new Star Wars webnovel for the Middle Kingdom and translate 40 older webnovels into Chinese, according to Variety.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the contracted author's pen name is ‘His Majesty the King’. He wrote two extremely popular Xianxia (martial arts with Chinese mythology) novels, became an online sensation, and worked with Lucasfilm Story Group to adapt one of his webnovels into an anime series, which Tencent published back in 2016. The new China Star Wars story will be authentic with ‘Chinese characteristics’ and Chinese storytelling methods.

The new installment of Star Wars in China is Disney's hope to create a new generation of fans here and encourage them to explore the iconic universe. While it might not seem like much of a move, keep in mind there are about 217 million monthly active users and close to 8 million authors on China Literature's various platforms, according to Variety. This isn't counting the readers outside of those platforms, as China has about 454 million readers of online literature.

If Star Wars' popularity ever rises in China, perhaps we'll have Star Wars-themed events on May the 4th in the future, and for existing fans, this could be a whole new universe to look forward to.

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