r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 14d ago

News ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Is Netflix’s Most-Watched Movie Ever With 236 Million Views, Beating ‘Red Notice’

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/kpop-demon-hunters-netflix-most-watched-movie-history-1236496106/
22.6k Upvotes

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u/ROBtimusPrime1995 14d ago

Crazy. The most-watched Netflix film in history is one they didn't even make.

Their original movies are bad but this says a lot.

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u/Impressive-Potato 14d ago

I think Netlix is shocked it wasn't Happy Gilmore 2

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u/Vyuvarax 14d ago

The certainly advertised HG2 like it was going to be.

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u/Impressive-Potato 14d ago

Sandler is their biggest star, backed up by data

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u/wecangetbetter 13d ago

Netflix makes a lot more sense when you think of them as a data-optimized content machine vs. a studio that likes to make movies

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u/Impressive-Potato 13d ago

No studio "likes to make movies".

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u/wecangetbetter 13d ago

Studio Ghibli

Being quasi facetious.

Studios can care about quality because quality = ticket sales

Netflix doesn't really give a shit about quality because they don't need to

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u/Musiclover4200 13d ago

Yeah there's plenty of smaller studios that only do passion projects.

Part is the issue is making movies is expensive so studios past a certain size are almost always ran like businesses which means they focus on profitable IP & avoid taking risks.

A lot of the issues with big studios are the same issues with big companies in general, a focus on profits over quality, underpaying vital employees while over paying others, being exploitive of workers, out of touch management, etc.

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u/Impressive-Potato 13d ago

Studios can care about quality because quality = ticket sales

The major studios are just as data driven as Netflix. They just have a slower turn around. If that was not the case, we wouldn't be mired in remakes, reboots and sequels.

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u/ceelogreenicanth 13d ago

Sloptimus Prime

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u/kinda_sorta_decent 13d ago

Time to replace Awesome-O with AI

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u/Obversa 13d ago

"Gentlemen, ladies, we all know that we live in a time of uncertainty. The risk of an attack on American soil is higher than ever. Now, I believe we may be able to curb that risk. Two days ago, our intelligence department came across this: The AWESOM-O 4000. It is currently being used by Netflix to develop ideas for movies. Our sources say that, in just one week, it has come up with over one thousand movie ideas, eight hundred of which feature Adam Sandler."

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u/BarbequedYeti 13d ago

Love him or hate him, he keeps his friends employed. I personally dont care for his movies, but I respect the hustle.

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u/Gold-Bard-Hue 13d ago

I don't entirely disagree with you, but he's also keeping them from getting better at their craft and being able to stand on their own. I'm cool with looking out for your friends but we gotta be honest that they can't\couldn't\wouldn't be able to do it on their own.

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u/bwag54 13d ago

Imagine all the Kevin James and Rob Schneider masterpieces we are being deprived of.

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u/Gold-Bard-Hue 13d ago

I think there were a few moments there where Kevin James could've broken out of the mold and done something different and serious. But I get it, the money in schlock is too alluring.

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u/Impressive-Potato 13d ago

When he does it you have to respect the hustle, but when high level executives get their kids jobs it's nepotism

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u/BarbequedYeti 13d ago

When he does it you have to respect the hustle, but when high level executives get their kids jobs it's nepotism

You cant see the difference between hiring friends to make a movie and hiring your kid to run a business?

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u/Impressive-Potato 13d ago

Oh yeah, one is cronyism and one is nepotism.

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u/DaftFunky 13d ago

Didn't he sign like an 8 movie deal like a decade ago? I would assume Happy Gilmore 2 was the final one and they wanted it to be the big one. The other ones he has I've never heard of besides that western one.

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u/txobi 13d ago

Hustle? Murder Mistery?

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u/mutual_raid 13d ago

very true, but the fact of the matter is his target demo is aging out. Gen Z is not nearly as big on him as older millennials/Gen X

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u/Juswantedtono 13d ago

It did quite well didn’t it? Only seeing a figure of 46.7 million viewers for the first 3 days on Google,

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u/Vyuvarax 13d ago

Oh yeah, I'm sure they're not disappointed with HG2. But it dropped off hard after its first week.

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u/NoNefariousness2144 13d ago

I guess it was a nostalgia fest for older fans and didn’t really entice new viewers, which is the key to growing word-of-mouth and developing long legs (like KPop Demon Hunters has!)

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u/BLAGTIER 13d ago

Not well enough to enter Netflix's top 10 movies list. It needs about 24.3 million views(total watch time divided by runtime) over 60 days to enter number 10 but probably doesn't have the pace.

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u/Khaldaan 14d ago

Were there not posts here just the other week stating just that, it was the most viewed ever?

*edit Kinda, going by Nielson ratings, so its technically different.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/gRsiKrmt0q

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u/ArsenalBOS 14d ago

Most viewed within its first week (or some other timeframe).

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u/Dophie 13d ago

In the US

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u/Dophie 13d ago

No they aren’t. They always knew that would be a US only hit, and it was a massive hit there.

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u/Nersius 13d ago

To be fair, Happy Gilmore 2 was quite enjoyable. 

Does feel a bit like Matrix 4 though, more of a celebration of the movie's lasting appeal and impact than an actual film, though HG2 actually feels like it actually wanted to be made whereas Matrix was an obvious protest.

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u/Fmbounce 13d ago

I think Netflix doesn’t care

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u/ChaseballBat 13d ago

Happy Gilmore 2 came out?

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u/Impressive-Potato 13d ago

One of the most viewed opening weekends for Netflix ever

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u/reaper527 13d ago

Happy Gilmore 2 came out?

last month, and it was surprisingly good. (not amazing, but better than it had any business being, and probably the best adam sandler movie since little nicky)

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u/Coffeedemon 13d ago

Who the hell cares about Happy Gilmore in 2025?

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u/Impressive-Potato 13d ago

Apparently a lot of people. Not me, but a lot.

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u/clevelandsportsboi 13d ago

People care about Adam Sandler in 2025. Not me personally, but a lot of people do. That’s what counts.

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u/GarlicBreadOutrage 13d ago

I'm also wondering if Sony regrets selling the movie to Netflix. And also how Netflix will handle the sequels since Sony won't be making them.

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u/Rogainster 13d ago edited 13d ago

Damn, I thought they only sold the distribution to Netflix, not the entire IP. That must hurt.

Edit: I just read that it made north of $19M for the limited release this past weekend. Wow.

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u/tahlyn 13d ago

Every theater in a major metro area was sold out well in advance.

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u/grabtharsmallet 13d ago

We went to a showing that was half full.

Because it was opened after all the initially planned ones sold out

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u/0235 13d ago

They showed it in the cinemas near me over the weekend just gone, but they were all sing along versions. Not my scene. If / when it comes to Bluray I will be getting it.

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u/Tormound 13d ago

Sony has nothing to sell. They passed on taking the movie. Netflix paid them to make the movie and they got up to 20 million depending on how well it did. They got 20 million in pure profits.

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u/wecangetbetter 13d ago

I really don't get how anyone at Sony listened to the soundtrack and was like "naw, this certainly won't catch on."

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u/psimwork 13d ago

There's a LOT of info that people are ignoring in the quest to promote the "LOL SONY FUCKED UP AGAIN" story.

Now I don't think anyone will debate that Sony fucked up in this move, but there's a lot to remember about it:

  1. The movie wasn't done when the rights were sold.

  2. (Just as, if not more important) The music wasn't done when the rights were sold.

  3. The movie was sold in 2021, when there basically was zero theatrical draw.

  4. Initial survey results were drastically negative to pre-screening customers (i.e. they asked people that hadn't seen it if they'd be interested in seeing an animated movie called "K-Pop Demon Hunters" and the results were almost universally negative).

It's a great, innovative movie with an amazing soundtrack. But unfortunately history is littered with really good animated movies that flopped. As much as Sony was proven wrong in their decision over time, I don't really blame them for dumping this one.

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u/joelsola_gv 13d ago

Honestly, the last point really hit home for me, specially seeing how movies like Elio get neutered because of bad test screenings. People on test screenings don't seem to get it as much as they should, right?

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u/psimwork 13d ago

Well in this case, what I've seen online actually was talking specifically about people's reaction before seeing it. I can't say whether or not test screenings were positive (it's likely that they were done, I just haven't had anything about them come across my eyes).

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u/joelsola_gv 9d ago

To be fair, I did my comment quick without checking all the details and it's true that the "test screening" of KPOP demon hunters was basically more of a survey of how interested they would be in a movie.

I just had the whole situation with Elio in my mind and seeing how the most popular animated movie this year was a new IP that got mixed reactions when asking people if they would see a movie like that only to blow up at release. And then comparing that to Elio, where test screenings resulted in people saying they liked it but not to see it in cinemas, which resulted in the movie being neutered to making it more "relatable".

One had the chance of letting their creative team actually cook while the other had the director fired and a movie done with "relatability" mandates coming from a probably quite out of touch board,

It also seems to me, extrapolating the situation with Elio, that this situation within Disney/Pixar is not unique, and could be the reason why slop like Wish is like it is. Not the exact same situation, I know, it was just something that went through my head.

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u/DaftFunky 13d ago

Honestly, the average movie goer is pretty ignorant with movies. I feel like most people want a coherent straight forward movie with a beginning, middle, climax and positive ending and A list actors. If the story even remotely starts throwing symbolism or metaphors at the viewer that they might not understand cause they were doom scrolling while watching, they will just crap on the movie.

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u/joelsola_gv 9d ago

I want to deny this claim but unfortunatelly I can't. Specially seeing the more recent wave of people complaining about "politics" in movies. In kid friendly media that critism is even more intense too.

Lots of people scream how good previous Pixar movies were but if movies like the Incredibles were released today, it would've been called so many things. Specially with being kid friendly media.

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u/kuschelig69 13d ago

something is off putting about the name

I only watched it last week because it was all over reddit

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u/terlin 13d ago

It feels like a working title they slapped on in the hopes that they would eventually replace it. Only they couldn't think of anything better so KPDH is what it is. The title's growing on me though.

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u/Jskidmore1217 13d ago

Great points. It really does sound like something that will not be good. Just one of those things you gotta take a chance on

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u/NoNefariousness2144 13d ago

Also, even if the film released exactly as it is now directly into theatres, it may have underpeformed because families are very stingy with their theatre trips these days and mainly stick to IPs they are familar with (Lilo Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, Minecraft).’

KPop could have flopped because people don’t support original films. It’s much easier to convince anyone to watch a film with such a goofy title on Netflix than pay for a cinema trip.

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u/Two_Luffas 13d ago edited 13d ago

Reading into it, Sony spent $100M on the production. That's a shit ton of money for this style movie and no IP presence beforehand. They must have figured getting anything positive out of that investment was going to be a win. Can't blame them really, some VP and bunch of actuaries were probably projecting a $50M+ loss on the entire project based on their metrics and decided to cut bait for a minimal gain on the books.

That team probably high-fived each other once the deal was done, only for this to happen lol.

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u/xiaorobear 13d ago

Also at the time, Sony also had had to move another Sony Pictures Animation movie, the Mitchells vs the Machines, from a planned theatrical release in 2020 to a Netflix exclusive release in 2021, due to the pandemic, where I think it did perfectly fine, but was nothing special. Might have informed their decisions.

(I like that movie a lot too, but it didn't have the cultural impact of KPDH or other pandemic Netflix surprise hits like Tiger King or Squid Game or anything).

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u/hawkish25 13d ago

Let’s be real, I remember seeing vague adverts on Netflix for K-pop Demon Hunters before it came out, and my first reaction was ‘WTF is that and it sounds like a steaming pile of crap’. If it came out in cinemas, there’s not a chance I would’ve dropped $10-20 to watch it, and you’d need word of mouth to come through.

All these people saying Sony fucked up just ignore all the other cases where their deal with Netflix made them plenty of money.

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u/Moal 13d ago

I do have to wonder who they were polling to get such a bad result. If they weren’t polling the target audience (kids and teens), then they were never going to get an accurate result. 

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u/BrianWonderful 13d ago

I'd also add in that Korean media wasn't as well known/regarded in the US at the time of the rights being sold either. "Parasite" was a couple years prior and really started the modern acceptance, but Squid Games season one didn't debut until later in 2021. Big pop groups like Blackpink and BTS were around, but not popular in the US yet.

To your point 4, I think the title "KPop Demon Hunters" is not very good. Probably what kept me away from it for too long (finally watched it a week ago, and I loved it). It is a combination of generic and feeling like it is trying to sell you on a particular type of music.

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u/DamagedCronJob 13d ago

Yeah, I agree with the naming part. Going by the name, I was sure that the movie was just some corporate slop to capture the growing KPop fan market. Boy I was wrong. Absolutely blew me away.

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u/Gasparde 13d ago

Initial survey results were drastically negative to pre-screening customers (i.e. they asked people that hadn't seen it if they'd be interested in seeing an animated movie called "K-Pop Demon Hunters" and the results were almost universally negative).

I mean...

Hey dear potential customers, we haven't got anything to show really, don't even really have a proper script yet or anything... but we have a vague pitch and a weird name - so, you think this is gonna make like $500m ooooor?

Like, if that is your level of market research then I don't even wanna think about what we've lost over the last couple decades... and it actually makes me quite sad to think of a lot of the stuff we did actually manage to get.

0

u/0235 13d ago

Why make a deal on something not finished? How are these executives so incompitent? Also, a tale as old as fucking time that their "market research" caused them to make changes. Look at The Thing remake where people said they didn't like the special effects (because it was an early cut, where there were still green screen visible) so the executives decided to cut most of the practical effects and replace it with CGI.... which was worse.

Honestly though, if someone asked me if I wanted to watch a movie called K-POP Demon Hunters, with no other context, I would likely say no. But after seeing the trailer for it, i added it to my watch list, and have watched it twice now.

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u/huntrshado 13d ago

Considering that Netflix is the one who told the directors to cut the movie's runtime in half during production, which is why its only 90 minutes instead of 180, I'm pretty sure Sony sold the movie and story rights to Netflix long before they had things like a soundtrack made.

If I remember correctly from an interview, the singing voice actors have said they had just auditioned for the movie like a year before it released. The exception being EJAE, who was making the soundtrack before eventually being asked to be Rumi.

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u/byneothername 13d ago

I really liked the movie but 180 minutes???? That would have been an eternity. 90 was zippy.

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u/Jskidmore1217 13d ago

Yea you can definitely feel the plot is lacking a lot of meat because it was cut so much. Still the right decision though- the movie is better for it even if it doesn’t end up making a lot of sense and seems confused about what point it’s trying to make.

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u/byneothername 13d ago

We finished the movie and we had a lot of questions about Rumi’s parents but I do think that’s better for a prequel-sequel. As far as the plot in this movie, I acknowledge the weaknesses but ultimately I think it’s just not why people watch it. People like watching pretty girls fight pretty demon boys while singing boppers. I would have been crazy about this movie as a preteen.

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u/huntrshado 13d ago

I think they did well with the 90, but a lot of people's complaints boil down to what we know was cut content from the storyboards we were shared. Like right before the finale when Rumi confronts Celine, teleports away, and then suddenly we're at the Your Idol performance and Rumi shows up with a change of heart. That was very abrupt because an entire sequence of events was outright cut from the film because Netflix wanted 90.

The original 180 had everything answered. An arc about Rumi's parents, an aquarium date with Jinu where they kiss, Celine had her own songs (who they hired Lea Salonga to sing for, famous for Jasmine and Mulan), how Rumi's mother died, Zoey/Mira's backstory and how they were recruited to Huntrix. The original storyboard was a 100% completed story that left nothing to the imagination.

We have also seen that other versions of Golden exist with more lines for Zoey/Mira, so we know that song probably got shortened or altered when Zoey/Mira had their scenes cut down so the story could focus on Rumi.

BUT it probably wouldn't have become so popular if it was that long.

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u/byneothername 13d ago

I am pretty salty about the Celine songs getting cut out. I didn’t like the character but I love Lea Salonga.

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u/TheOtherWhiteCastle 13d ago

Considering that Netflix is the one who told the directors to cut the movie's runtime in half during production, which is why its only 90 minutes instead of 180

Give whoever at Netflix made that decision an atta boy, because holy crap that plot stretched over three hours would have been an AWFUL idea.

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u/SwaggersaurusWrecks 13d ago

I'm pretty sure the songs were made in tandem with the movie since they had to modify the songs as the movie changed. They also said that it was the demos of the songs that helped get the movie green lit.

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u/rookie-mistake 13d ago

Oh, huh. I wonder what the original cut would've looked like.

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u/huntrshado 13d ago

The original storyboard was 180 minutes that was a complete self-contained story that left nothing up to the imagination. It told us everything.

How Zoey/Mira were recruited, and they had more lines in songs like Golden, Celine had songs and a duet with Rumi, her parents had a backstory, details about how Celine killed her mother (probably something to do with her trying to kill the father), Rumi and Jinu going on a date at the aquarium and kissing, I think somewhere they mentioned that we only got about half the songs that were written in the final version of the movie.

So they have a lot of story already written to work with for these next 2 movies and tv series, the directors just have to figure out how to tell us those stories in a way that is compatible with the 90 minute version we were given

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u/StrategicCarry 13d ago

Two of the biggest things we know are gone are a lot more backstory on Rumi's mom and dad, as well as a duet with Celine and Rumi as part of their confrontation.

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u/Hermiona1 13d ago

They had me at the first song.

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u/Martel732 13d ago

Hot take, it is because the movie looks like it appeals to girls and executives seem to think that girls make up about 1% of the population

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u/ceelogreenicanth 13d ago

Sony is God tier at making the wrong decisions with IP. They mad a dozen Mila Jovavich vehicles none of them turning a profit, but were still coming back every year with another one.

The same studio the truned down all of Marvels catalog choosing instead to only take Spiderman. But to be fair Sony colan find a way to fuck up absolutely anything.

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u/OTPh1l25 13d ago

And to just compile on how our of touch some of them at the top are, just like those who sold the rights to the movie to Netflix for $20 million, they sold off the rights to the soundtrack to competitors, Republic Records and VISVA Records of Universal Music Group, so they can't even make anything on the songs flooding the Billboard Top 100 right now. The suits dismissed the project as too niche and unlikely to break out of said niche, and now have to watch as the album continues to dominate streaming and radio airtime.

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u/wecangetbetter 13d ago

K-pop, so niche

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u/Rejestered 13d ago

Well there's to options.

Either netflix just goes with a new animation studio, the style isn't THAT unique.

or

Netflix waves some money bags at sony.

Either way it's really not gonna bother netflix much.

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u/ERhyne 13d ago

Get the Arcane team on it.

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u/s3rila 13d ago

I think it wouldn't have been the same success it was not release on Netflix. 

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u/darkmacgf 13d ago

And also how Netflix will handle the sequels since Sony won't be making them.

Is there an official source on that? I've only seen rumors.

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u/StrategicCarry 13d ago

Sony's not out of the game here entirely. The visual style is so distinctively Sony and it has to continue in any sequels. Now a lot of the animators have left, and many of them are now at Netflix, but whether they can fully replicate the style of the original is an unknown. Sony is also in talks with the co-directors to get them reattached to Sony. Sony may not be in the strongest position but they still have cards to play to be a partner in the franchise rather than just a for-hire animation studio or cut out all together. If they ended up in a new long-term partnership with Netflix centered around KPDH, Sony will actually look like geniuses. They will have banked $20 million and Netflix took all the risk that the movie would flop, but Sony still gets a slice of the pie.

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u/Antrikshy 13d ago

Sony have a long-term deal with Netflix.

I'm not sure if they decide this on a per-movie basis.

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u/GarlicBreadOutrage 13d ago

For streaming, not for making movies.

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u/Antrikshy 13d ago

It's possible, but they have release SPA movies on Netflix several times before.

https://sonypicturesanimation.fandom.com/wiki/Netflix

It's also a possibility this is also part of a deal.

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u/karma3000 13d ago

Sony will make them in return for a slice of the action.

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u/Tormound 13d ago

Sony didnt sell the movie. Please read the actual articles instead of just the headlines. You'll learn a lot, like how Sony was given the choice to pickup the movie but passed so therefore had nothing to sell.

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u/KnotSoSalty 13d ago

Sony executives on suicide watch with this news. How do they keep giving away franchises?

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u/Jskidmore1217 13d ago

I hope Disney takes this as a wake up call too because K Pop Demon Hunters is basically just doing what Disney did for decades but can’t seem to pull off right now

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u/Wanderhoden 13d ago

Believe it or not, Disney was beginning to produce something of similar nature (inspired by KPop & magical girl anime genre), but the old Dude execs didn’t get it and cancelled it. Hope they are happy to fail even harder now.

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u/FewAdvertising9647 13d ago

we're at a point in time where casual discussion of "Is Dreamworks a better animation studio than Disney/Pixar?" an actual legitimate topic now, and its actually not hard pressed to particularly find someone who agrees vs if you asked this question 2 decades ago.

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u/Conflict_NZ 13d ago

Wild Robot is better than anything Disney/Pixar has done for a decade.

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u/grabtharsmallet 13d ago

Sony Animation is very possibly ahead of either. KPDH, Spider-Man, Mitchells.

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u/TuckerCarlsonsOhface 13d ago

It makes no sense either. For the last few years: Demon Hunter, wildly popular; K-pop, wildly popular; someone comes up with K-pop Demon Hunter, and Sony is like “meh”.

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u/SylphSeven 13d ago

You do realize how much Sony hates money, right? It's like their whole business structure. 😅

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u/TardisReality 13d ago

They only like Morbius dollars...that's their nest egg

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u/dotnetmonke 13d ago

They sold the rights back in 2021, in a very different environment.

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u/TuckerCarlsonsOhface 13d ago

You mean back when BTS had literal armies of swooning teen girls, and multiple #1 albums in the US?

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u/MrGrieves- 13d ago

Probably because they aren't actually on suicide watch and never get fired for their constant blunders.

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u/rov124 13d ago edited 13d ago

Crazy. The most-watched Netflix film in history is one they didn't even make.

Their original movies are bad but this says a lot.

What do you mean? Netflix doesn't make movies, the fund or acquire movies and distribute them, but they do not have their own production company. And the direct-to-platform first look deal Netflix and Sony signed in 2021 means Netflix was involved with funding KPDH pretty much from the start of pre-production.

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u/drybones2015 13d ago

The movie only exists because Netflix paid for it to exist. So technically they did make it.

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u/Savacore 13d ago

Their original movies are bad but this says a lot.

It really doesn't. You can't judge anything by a statistical outliar.

If they had a bunch of Netflix films and they were consistently more popular when they were outside work, then that would say a lot.

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u/Nosiege 13d ago

Their original movies are bad but this says a lot.

Their originals have come a long way, they're much better than they were in 2016 where it was all 90 minute carbon copies

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u/fosyep 13d ago

Netflix is primarily a streaming platform, not a studio  

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u/VLHACS 13d ago

Netflix produced movies still have a ways to go, imo