The most recent adaptation of a popular success of the webtoon. However, little has been heard since the confirmation that the live-action will air in 2025 until now.

As revealed in a new trailer published on the official YouTube channel of the Korean movie distributor Lotte Entertainment, Omniscient Reader: The Prophet will be released in July 2025. The brief trailer of only 32 seconds shows off the main cast and incredible visual effects and gives a few hints about the story, which promises an exciting visual experience. However, the trailer has implied some changes to the original story that have become the focus of controversy among fans of the series.

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint's Live-Action Trailer Showcases a Major Change to the Manhwa

Omniscient Reader: The Prophet’s New Trailer Sparked Backlash From Fans

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint follows the story of Kim Dokja, whose world ends up merging with the dystopian novel he reads, and he becomes the only one who knows what will happen in the story, and its first live-action film is set to cover the first story arcs, Proof of Value and Geumho Station. However, the trailer showcases a big difference regarding the source material, as the characters appear using fire weapons instead of swords like in the original story.

While this doesn’t affect Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint's narrative in itself, fans criticized the change of swords as weapons, posting their discomfort to the extent of creating memes and referring to the film as "Omniscient Reader’s Gunpoint". Many fans claim the change doesn’t make sense in the context of the story, as since it's set in a post-apocalyptic modern Korea, it wouldn’t be easy to find armaments, and these wouldn’t be useful for defeating monsters. However, this might be a strategy by the production team, as adding weapons could create even flashier fights.

Fans Complain About the Constellations and Dokkaebis Possibly Being Cut In the Live-Action

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint’s Authors May Have Agreed With the Changes in the Live-Action Film

Another change pointed out by fans in Omniscient Reader: The Prophet's trailer was the lack of a status window in the trailer, which showcased the constellations in the story, as well as the fact that the dokkaebi, Bihyung, was nowhere to be seen, which worried fans who believed the production team might have decided to scratch these aspects from the live-action film. This would be a bad decision given their importance in the story. However, fans’ concerns could be reassured by Won Dongyeon, producer of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, according to a post on the PopBase X , where he explained the changes in the adaptation.

Before making the movie, we showed the entire script to the original author in advance and explained all the adaptations. The author fully understood and accepted them.

Yoo Joonghyuk uses both a sword and a gun. All the dokkaebis appear as well. While we haven’t replicated the original work exactly, the message, characters, and worldbuilding remain completely unchanged. We hope for the strong of the original fans.

This is the version with Yoo Joonghyuk holding a sword. When adapting an original work into a film, cinematic modifications are always necessary.

For Along with the Gods, we made significant adaptations, but both the author and fans understood after watching the movie. Even now, we have a good relationship with the author.

Fans who love Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint will understand what I mean once they see the movie. We truly love the original work. - Won Dongyeon, Producer of Omniscient Reader: The Prophet

The statement by Won Dongyeon confirms that these changes have been consulted on and approved by the author, SingNsong. Moreover, the reassurance that the swords and the dokkaebis will still appear in the film could comfort fans and generate anticipation as the visual effects look striking. Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint is a hit web novel that has more than 425 million readers, so the live-action film could become an international success like other popular series based on manhwas, like All of Us Are Dead or Sweet Home. So Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint fans should keep an eye out for the movie this summer.

Source: Lotte Entertainment youtube channel, PopBase X