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Tag: KPop Demon Hunters

  • KPop Demon Hunters Is Shining As Netflix’s Most Watched Movie Ever

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    Real.
    Photo: Netflix/YouTube

    KPop Demon Hunters has officially slain Red Notice. The animated film dominated the box office this weekend and officially became Netflix’s most popular movie ever. The streamer reports that the film has 236 million total views. And with a new sing-along version, the view count can only go up, up, up.

    That makes Red Notice Netflix’s second-most popular film, followed by Carry-On, Don’t Look Up, and The Adam Project. But does The Adam Project have Andy Samberg stanning it on Good Morning America?

    The musical hits also keep coming for KPop Demon Hunters. The movie has spawned yet another top-ten hit on the “Billboard Hot 100,” with “How It’s Done” coming in at number ten this week, followed by “Soda Pop” (No. 5), “Your Idol” (No. 2), and “Golden” at the top of the charts. Take that, Alex Warren! Demon Hunters now holds the record for most concurrent top-ten hits of any film soundtrack. The last time a film had four top-ten hits was Waiting to Exhale in 1995 to 1996, but those songs weren’t all charting simultaneously. And the last time a movie had three hits in the top five at the same time was Saturday Night Fever. Here’s hoping the inevitable KPop Demon Hunters sequel does better than Staying Alive.

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    Bethy Squires

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  • KPop Demon Hunters is Netflix’s most-watched movie of all time

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    Huntr/x has indeed shown us how it’s done-done-done. KPop Demon Hunters is now the queen it was meant to be, taking the crown as the most-watched title on Netflix. The charming animated film has racking up since its debut on June 20.

    The movie is about exactly what it says on the tin: a trio of k-pop idols secretly protect the human world from demons. But it became a smash hit this summer thanks to its unexpectedly insightful themes and unbelievably catchy soundtrack. In fact, the music is so good that the movie recently had four different tracks in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart at the same time; no other movie soundtrack has done that before.

    Netflix even parlayed the popularity of KPop Demon Hunters into a , offering fans a chance to sing along with the film last weekend. Although the streaming service hasn’t shared any figures from the theater singalong, reported that based on other studios’ projections, Netflix made an estimated $18 to $20 million over the two days of showings.

    The previous holder of most-watched on Netflix was heist flick Red Notice, which has generated views since 2021. Considering KPop Demon Hunters surpassed several years’ worth of views in a matter of months, that’s one heck of a takedown.

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    Anna Washenko

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  • The ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Success Story Could Be a Turning Point for Cinema

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    This weekend, movie history was made. For the first time ever, Netflix had the number one movie at the box office with its megahit KPop Demon Hunters. However, while every single other film distributor would’ve celebrated this fact, the streamer didn’t report the numbers. Instead, it put the version of the film in theaters immediately onto its streamer. The message was clear. This wasn’t meant to be a huge money grab or play for theatrical dominance. It was more of a thank you to the fans who streamed the film in record numbers and an elaborate advertisement for Netflix. But the film’s undeniable success brings up many questions about how and why this happened, if it could be repeated, and what all that means.

    The biggest question among those is whether KPop Demon Hunters would have been as big a success had it been exclusively released in theaters? The film debuted on Netflix in late June and was immediately embraced by everyone who watched it. Critics, fans, and anyone who saw it loved it, and its Rotten Tomatoes score remains at 97%. At that time, Netflix also released the film in three theaters for one week back in June to qualify it for the Academy Awards. The streamer never reported that data, but we can tell you, it was not number one at the box office. The awareness and popularity were just beginning, and they haven’t stopped.

    Slowly but surely, KPop Demon Hunters became one of Netflix’s biggest hits ever. Word of mouth, coupled with ease of accessibility, made it arguably the pop culture sensation of the summer. Songs from the film are on the Billboard Top 10, gaining airplay on national radio and streaming services. Toy companies have come calling to make merchandise. There’s talk of sequels, spin-offs, and over two months since its initial release, it’s on its way to being Netflix’s most successful original movie of all time, live action or animated.

    All of which happened before this weekend. In Hollywood today, the traditional way of thinking is that a film being on streaming kills its box office prospects. If people can stream it at home, they will not go to the theaters. And there is surely data to back that up. Most people think the perfect formula is for something to be released exclusively in theaters, where it can generate great buzz and box office, which then drives interest towards the home release. So a studio makes money on a film in theaters, for its digital release, physical release, and then the streaming release. A quadruple dip with excitement and publicity, ideally, driving new viewers to each format.

    © Sony Pictures Animation/Netflix

    KPop Demon Hunters, though, changes all that. It wasn’t released on Netflix with a ton of publicity. Even its recent theatrical release wasn’t backed with hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing. The film became a hit on Netflix because a) it’s good, obviously, and b) people could watch it immediately after their friends told them about it. It was there. It was available. We were already paying for it. And by the time, months later, the film got a larger theatrical release, it had permeated the culture to become less a first-run hit and almost a repertory movie. A movie that fans are so familiar with, they pay to see it in theaters just for the experience.

    Historically, those kinds of movies can be box office successes, but not always. Star Wars, for example, going all the way back to the 1980s, through the Special Editions of the 1990s, and to the prequel releases in recent years, proves that. But those movies had already been available at home for a long time. KPop Demon Hunters is generally thought of as a new title. Which it is, in terms of days. But in terms of popularity and awareness, thanks to the incredible speed with which we consume content in 2025, it’s already well established beyond its age.

    Twenty-six million watched KPop Demon Hunters over its ninth week of release from August 11 to 17 (which is the most recent data Netflix has released as of publication). Crudely, if you pretend each one of those people paid $10 to see the movie, that’s $260 million, about what Spider-Man: No Way Home made in its opening weekend. The point being, months after release, people are still streaming the crap out of it in wild numbers. Would the film have made even close to that if it had gone the traditional route to theaters? Not in its ninth week, to be sure. Would kids of all ages have gone to theaters over and over to watch the movie in record numbers? Maybe. But the fact that it had already become something everyone could enjoy certainly aided in this case.

    If a movie can debut on streaming first, find its audience, and then retroactively become a box office hit, all bets are off. It’s a complete inversion of the traditional way of thinking in Hollywood. No one wants to give something away for free if people are willing to pay for it. Well, the message with KPop Demon Hunters is that people will pay for it even if it is free because it’s so good and fun and they love it. In this case, Netflix was the ultimate marketing tool for the weekend’s biggest box office hit.

    KPop Demon Hunters, as well as the new sing-along version, which played in theaters this weekend, is on Netflix.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Germain Lussier

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  • KPop Demon Hunters Wins the Weekend Box Office

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    Uncertainty abounds.
    Photo: Netflix/YouTube

    This weekend’s box office is one big ol’ guesstimate. Because Netflix isn’t sharing its grosses for the singalong version of KPop Demon Hunters, we don’t really know who topped the box office. We have a good guess though! Variety reports that KPop Demon Hunters did $18-20 million in business, putting it above Weapons’ more knowable third week of $15.6 million. At number 3 is Freakier Friday with $9.1 million. The Fantastic Four: First Steps was at number 4 with $5.9 million, and The Bad Guys 2 closed the top 5 with $5.1 million.

    Netflix is willing to disclose that KPop Demon Hunters has become the streamer’s second-most watched movie. It could well become Netflix’s biggest movie by the time the Oscars roll around. Three of the movie’s songs — “Golden,” “Your Idol” and “Soda Pop” — are in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Surely stans can get behind one of those songs and dethrone “Ordinary” by Alex Warren for another week?

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    Bethy Squires

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  • ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Could Sing to Netflix’s First Theatrical Hit

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    After growing popularity and fan demand, KPop Demon Hunters came to theaters across North America this weekend. And in what’s surely a shock, the film might manage to take the top spot in the box office and give Netflix something else to brag about.

    Per the Hollywood Reporter, the KPop singalong screenings is looking to earn $18-20 million domestic before the weekend is out. That number comes courtesy of exhibition sources and “rival studios,” since Netflix doesn’t report numbers when its movies hit theaters. But should KPop hit that range (or exceeds it), this would mark the first time a movie from the streamer hit #1 on the big screen. Of the big North American theater chains, AMC is the only one not playing it, and around 1,150 of its 1,700 showings sold out earlier in the week.

    Netflix has always had a rocky relationship with theaters, which has gained greater scrutiny recently. Earlier in August, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer announced they were moving to Paramount in April 2026 to make theatrical movies—said to be a huge factor in their decision—and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein will hit the big screen in October. People who’ve watched KPop Demon Hunters at home have come away from it thinking it could’ve been a hit in theaters, and this two-day screening proves them right a little bit. At time of writing, it’s unknown if Netflix will allow for more screenings closer to Oscar season, or even extend it to other countries, but it looks like there’s no stopping KPop Demon Hunters’ momentum for the forseeable future.

    Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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    Justin Carter

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  • Box Office: Netflix’s ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ Leads With Estimated $18 Million Debut, ‘Weapons’ Stays Strong With $15.6 Million

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    In a box office twist, a film from the theatrical-averse Netflix appears to be No. 1 on North American charts. “Kpop Demon Hunters,” a singalong version of the hit animated musical, is estimated to have earned $18 million to $20 million on Saturday and Sunday.

    Netflix isn’t reporting grosses, but projections from rival studios and exhibitors would put ticket sales for “Kpop Demon Hunters” ahead of those for “Weapons,” which collected a strong $15.6 million from 3,631 North American theaters in its third weekend of release.

    “Kpop Demon Hunters” playing on 1,700 screens (that’s nearly double the theater count for the streamer’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” in 2022) and roughly 1,150 of those showings were reportedly sold out, according to knowledgable sources. That “Kpop Demon Hunters,” a fantasy adventure about a Kpop girl group who protects the world from demons with their music, is available on the big screen at all is rare — and not just because it’s backed by Netflix, which doesn’t prioritize theatrical. It’s unusual because “Kpop Demon Hunters” isn’t new; the movie debuted on Netflix about two months ago. But in the time since, it has become the second-most watched film ever on the platform while three of the film’s original tunes — “Golden,” “Your Idol” and “Soda Pop” — are currently in the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Though it’s a boon for theaters during a painfully slow weekend, that’s not why Netflix brought “Kpop Demon Hunters” to multiplexes. The streaming behemoth is hoping that excitement will drive people back to the platform for re-watches or the inevitable sequel.

    “There is no CinemaScore, but audiences, particularly kids, love this movie. That’s why it’s here,” says analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.

    Although “Weapons” didn’t finish in first place as expected, the scary movie has achieved sleeper hit status with $115.9 million domestically and $199 million globally. The $38 million-budgeted film is the latest theatrical hit for director Zach Cregger, whose last film “Barbarian” became a quiet success for Disney in 2022 with $45 million. And it’s the sixth consecutive hit for Warner Bros. following “A Minecraft Movie,” “Sinners,” “Final Destination Bloodlines,” “F1: The Movie” (which the studio distributed for Apple) and “Superman.”

    Right now the overall box office is 5.1% ahead of last year — a margin that has been shrinking over the past few weeks. In early July, for example, revenues were 16% ahead of 2024.

    This weekend’s only new nationwide release, Ethan Coen’s dark comedy “Honey, Don’t,” landed at No. 8 with a soft $3 million from 1,317 venues. Opening weekend crowds were largely female (56%) female and nearly 70% over the age of 25. Margaret Qualley, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans and Charlie Day star in the film about a small-town private investigator who delves into a series of strange deaths that are tied to a mysterious church. “Honey, Don’t” is the second installment in what Coen calls a “lesbian B-movie trilogy” following 2024’s “Drive Away Dolls.” That film, which also starred Qualley and also garnered mixed reviews, failed to connect at the box office with $2.4 million in its debut and under $8 million globally by the end of its run.

    Elsewhere, A24 released an English version of China’s blockbuster smash “Ne Zha II,” but excitement didn’t translate to the States. The film grossed a tepid $1.5 million from 2,228 theaters, marking one of the worst starts this year for a movie in wide release. Of course, “Ne Zha II” doesn’t exactly need the North American coinage; the sequel has already shattered all kinds of box office records in the rest of the world with $2.1 billion to date.

    As the summer season grinds to a near halt, several holdover titles rounded out the top five.

    Though the actual numbers for “Kpop Demon Hunters” are unclear, Disney’s “Freakier Friday” likely placed third with $9.1 million in its third weekend, a scant 36% drop from the prior weekend. The PG sequel, reuniting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis as mother and daughter who swap places, has earned $70 million in North America and $113 million worldwide to date. Those ticket sales are trailing the 2003 original, “Freaky Friday,” which earned $160 million (not adjusted for inflation) but it’s a promising turnout for a theatrical comedy in the current box office landscape.

    Disney’s Marvel adventure “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” remained in fourth with $5.9 million in its fifth weekend of release. After a promising $117 million bow, “Fantastic Four” didn’t have as much staying power as expected with ticket sales $257 million in North America and $490 million worldwide. The movie is far outselling this year’s prior Marvel entries, February’s “Captain America: Brave New World” ($415 million globally) and May’s “Thunderbolts” ($382 million globally). But it’s not quite the return to box office form that many were predicting for the once-untouchable Marvel Cinematic Universe.

    “The Bad Guys 2” again took fifth place with $5.1 million in its fourth frame. Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s heist comedy has generated $66 million domestically and $149 million globally. By comparison, 2022’s original “Bad Guys” was a slow-and-steady hit with $250 million over the course of its entire run.

    More to come…

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    Rebecca Rubin

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  • Netflix Broke Its Rules to Share ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ on the Big Screen … But Don’t Expect the Streamer to Make a Habit of It (Column)

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    Now here’s a first: Two months after dropping “KPop Demon Hunters” on Netflix, the streamer is putting the animated hit in theaters — and not just the cursory Oscar-qualifying run its prestige titles get in New York and Los Angeles. This one is going wide, in more than 1,700 venues, for karaoke-captioned screenings in which audience participation is encouraged.

    Dress up! Sing along! Give in to the catchy choreography … that’s how it’s done done done!

    I’ve been on the Huntr/x train since the beginning and bought tickets to the first screening of the day at Los Angeles’ Alamo Drafthouse theater, where the house was packed with family audiences. They weren’t just in it for the songs either, but gleefully recited most of the dialogue, too. These kids knew the movie by heart, having watched it countless times at home, and now their parents were spending close to $100 to experience it on the big screen.

    Next week, the one-of-a-kind cultural phenomenon — in which a trio of Korean pop stars use the positive energy their songs generate to keep soul-sucking ghouls at bay, until evil demons form a rival boy band to steal their fans — is set to become Netflix’s most-watched movie. Clearly, this exclusive two-day event was willed into existence by popular demand, just as any extension or encore Netflix agrees to would also be.

    To the best of my knowledge, nobody was begging Netflix to release a sing-along version of Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” three years ago (much less “Emilia Pérez,” back when Netflix was treating that film like an Oscar frontrunner). And even though purists wanted to see Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” in theaters, those movies didn’t sell out nearly as quickly as “KPop Demon Hunters” shows did when Netflix announced its plan last week.

    The film is all about fandom, and this unprecedented move from the streaming-first media company suggests that Netflix recognized that the film’s millions-strong audience were craving the collective experience that only cinemas can provide.

    Maybe theaters aren’t quite as obsolete as Ted Sarandos would have us believe. Nor is this singular event likely to change how Netflix does business.

    First, it’s important to understand what “KPop Demon Hunters” is. Produced by Sony Pictures Animation (the studio behind “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”), the cleverly executed, computer-animated feature looks every bit as slick as the latest releases from Pixar and DreamWorks … which is to say, it could’ve easily supported a big-screen release in the first place.

    But that would’ve meant spending millions of marketing dollars, just to let audiences know of the movie’s existence, in a marketplace where opening weekend makes all the difference and films get chased off screen before they’ve had time to build a following. (That’s one reason Sony started selling its animated features to Netflix, which came to the rescue of “Wish Dragon,” from “KPop” co-director Chris Applehans, amid the pandemic.)

    Netflix famously keeps streaming numbers to itself, but it’s safe to say that “KPop Demon Hunters” would not have been nearly the same phenom had it gone the traditional theatrical route. This way, the movie benefited from word of mouth, aggregating more viewers as early adopters told their friends to check it out. That’s a luxury streaming releases have. Rrremember “RRR,” the gonzo Tollywood movie that barely made a ripple in theaters, but gained a following on Netflix?

    The best analogy here could be Disney’s animated “Encanto,” which did OK business in theaters (this was 2021, when windows were still compressed in response to the pandemic), but really took off when it hit Disney+ 30 days. Only then did the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” blow up with a very similar demographic.

    Perhaps the late shows will draw a crowd of older fans, though I loved sitting through the movie with a room full of chatty kids, one of whom was named Zoey (like the eager-to-please Huntr/x rapper, who fights demons with a glowing three-pronged dagger). Zoey and her friends seemed tickled any time her name was spoken.

    Back in June, before the film was released, I asked my friendly neighborhood Netflix reps if there was any way to see “KPop Demon Hunters” on the big screen. They declined. (I’d also hoped it might screen at the Annecy Animation Festival, which unspooled the week prior in France, but for some reason, they brought “Fixed” instead.) I can’t be alone in preferring to watch movies in a theater, although Netflix does their best to make that difficult for audiences.

    In Los Angeles, that meant opening them at the Bay, the upscale Pacific Palisades theater that shuttered amid the wildfires earlier this year — quite the shlep to watch Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon” (clearly better on the big screen) or the latest Adam Sandler movie. Now they sprinkle them into art-houses around town, doing what feels like the bare minimum to meet contractual obligations and Academy Awards rules.

    With “KPop Demon Hunters,” they opened in at least two dozen Los Angeles theaters, including major chains like Regal and Cinemark — more than doubling the number of screens the studio offered “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” in 2022. But the data-driven company also knew what they had in this case (what every studio wants): a sure thing.

    At the moment, three of the film’s original songs — “Golden,” “Your Idol” and “Soda Pop” — sit among the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. And judging by the reaction in the room, “Takedown” (which TWICE sings over the end credits, and the audience couldn’t resist echoing) could soon join their ranks.

    Netflix has a full slate of big-screen-worthy movies coming this fall, including Sundance marvel “Train Dreams,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” but however many millions “KPop Demon Hunters” earns this weekend, that doesn’t mean the streamer will rush to open those films wide.

    To repeat this experiment, they’d need another proven success with a built-in audience willing to pay to rewatch a film they first saw on streaming. Netflix has the numbers to indicate what time of year certain movies are popular. Maybe a Christmas release of last year’s “Carry On” could work.

    Or maybe this is a unicorn event for which we should simply be grateful: For two days only, nonsubscribers can see “KPop Demon Hunters,” surrounded by singing groupies whose enthusiasm willed the streaming phenomenon onto the big screen.

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    Peter Debruge

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  • KPop Demon Hunters Gets Perfectly Remade As A Lego Movie

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    Remember that scene in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse that showed a Lego version of Peter Parker living his best blocky life? If you didn’t know, that segment was animated entirely by then 14-year-old animator Preston Mutanga, who caught the filmmaker’s attention after he recreated the movie’s first trailer in the style of a Lego movie. It’s been two years, and the now 16-year-old Mutanga is still hard at work building scenes and trailers from Lego blocks. His recent projects include making the Grand Theft Auto 6 and Stranger Things trailers look like something right out of a kid’s toy box, but it’s his latest incredible videos that have really caught my eye: faithful remakes of scenes from KPop Demon Hunters, done in such spectacular fashion that they could have been an official collaboration between Sony, Netflix, and Lego.

    Mutanga has uploaded two videos featuring the Lego versions of Huntr/x to his TikTok account. One is a snippet of one of the coolest parts of the movie’s first musical number, “How It’s Done,” which shows the group skydiving down onto a blocky version of Seoul and kicking some demon booty on the way down. 

    The second is less action-packed but longer, and lets Mutanga add a cute nod to his Spider-Man roots. It’s a scene, maybe a third of the way into the movie, after the demonic Saja Boys boy band has started getting their flirty, sexy demon claws into the hearts and minds of the world. They’ve weakened the Honmoon barrier between the real and demon worlds, and the girls are trying to figure out what to do while maintaining their Kpop girl group cover. Their manager, Bobby, comes in to give them an update on their rivals’ newfound virality, and as he scrolls through videos of the Boys’ fans dancing to their hit song “Soda Pop,” a familiar webslinger briefly appears on his phone.

    Mutanga’s incredible work speaks for itself, but I will say I sure hope someone over at Lego or Sony is ready to give this kid a job when he’s of age. 

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    Kenneth Shepard

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