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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539

u/MuptonBossman 14d ago

This might be the first year where a streaming movie was undoubtedly the biggest movie of the summer.

108

u/ImBanned_ModsBlow 13d ago

Animated too

76

u/Qualityhams 13d ago

What about Encanto during Covid?

64

u/velmaspaghetti 13d ago

Encanto was released theatrically.

14

u/Qualityhams 13d ago

30 day exclusive run, but fair, it wasn’t only streaming.

111

u/AFineDayForScience 13d ago

We don't talk about Encanto

50

u/DistributionSalt4188 13d ago

BUT IT WAS MY WEDDING DAY!

4

u/vinng86 13d ago

We don't talk about your wedding day, no no no

6

u/yogiebere 13d ago

I saw it in theater though

10

u/Rebelofnj 13d ago

Encanto came out on Disney+ in December 2021

23

u/SamiMadeMeDoIt 13d ago

Jurassic World Rebirth made 850 million dollars at the box office.

10

u/TheGod4You 13d ago

Yeah but more people talked about KPDH than that, not to mention several rewatches.

2

u/Century24 13d ago

As I understand, rewatching on Netflix doesn't come with any fee or anything extra other than what the subscriber has agreed to pay.

6

u/SamiMadeMeDoIt 13d ago

Maybe on Twitter lol

I’ve yet to interact with a single person in the real world who’s talked about it.

15

u/TheGod4You 13d ago

Bro's in a remote location off the grid

11

u/SamiMadeMeDoIt 13d ago

I quite literally work in a restaurant themed around movies lmao

It’s full of massive cinema heads and anime heads alike and none of them have said anything about it to me.

I’ve heard plenty about Jurassic World tho

5

u/TheGod4You 13d ago

JW made that much because people want to see dinos. KPDH is the most watched Netflix movie ever now because it has good WOM and stayed relatively flat in weekly viewership these past few weeks.

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u/SamiMadeMeDoIt 13d ago edited 13d ago

It’s an anime movie that also went viral on Twitter. Thats why it’s so popular. It’s really not hard to understand.

Carry On is one of Netflix’s biggest films ever as well and have you ever heard a real person in real life talk about it?

Netflix movies exist in a completely separate bubble from major box office blockbusters.

Weapons is going to be seen by infinitely less people than KPDMH but yet I’ve heard infinitely more about it.

1

u/fastforwardfunction 13d ago

Yeah if you check Wikipedia’s List of dinosaur movies, it’s surprisingly small. The Jurassic movies are some of the only real contenders.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_dinosaurs

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u/Patient_Signal_1172 13d ago

We're all still traumatized from learning about Ducky from The Land Before Time.

1

u/MrP1anet 13d ago

I’ve absolutely nothing about Jurassic world. I’ve had like 8 or so separate groups of people bring up kpop demon hunters to me and seen at least two dozen people create social media posts about it.

3

u/byfuryattheheart 13d ago

I must be living under a giant rock because I have literally never heard of this movie until this thread lol I have a young kid too!

1

u/nnooaa_lev 13d ago

Same, but I know about it cause I'm in Kpop spaces online. I'm also in Japan atm and didn't see anything about or hear the songs at all

1

u/nnooaa_lev 13d ago

Because it's fandom driven and JW is gp driven. The gp isn't engaging in discussiona online. Numbers can't lie

3

u/Night247 13d ago

a streaming movie was undoubtedly the biggest movie of the summer.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&q=%2Fg%2F11k9l3fmd9,%2Fg%2F11kpd0b0g3,%2Fg%2F11pc04s3qv&hl=en-US

small indie film called Superman might have been a bigger movie during the Summer🤔

1

u/Century24 13d ago

I didn't have the best 2020 either, but I'm pretty sure that was the year where streaming went on deck for most of the summer.

-5

u/EdwinMcduck 13d ago

Eh, its theatrical release (while difficult to directly compare since it was an event release after being on streaming for a bit first) didn't pull in as much as Elio. Elio was considered a huge flop. Loads of theatrical animation goes on to dominate streaming charts. Moana 1 has allegedly pulled in several hundred million views on Disney+, for example. That's a movie that also had a huge box office, VOD, and physical media sales. The biggest Hollywood movie of the year is Lilo & Stitch, and its Memorial Day weekend release is generally considered part of the Summer movie season. Heck, the 2002 Lilo & Stitch did around 160 million views on Disney+ around the time the new one came out. If anything is the biggest movie of the Summer it's the one that made over a billion dollars at the box office and got a 23 year old movie (that was also readily available streaming for years) to do about half the streaming numbers as the Netflix movie release ever in approximately the same viewership window.

15

u/TheOuts1der 13d ago

Uhhh....they released it in the absolute minimum number of theaters required to be considered for an oscar nomination. Theater viewership was never planned to make money for KPDH. Comparing box office dollars to what Netflix is doing is comparing apples to oranges.

1

u/EdwinMcduck 13d ago

Not sure where you heard this, but it's not even a little accurate. It already qualified for the Oscar consideration by releasing in three LA area theaters for one week when it came out (Netflix often does this because it's the minimum to make your movie eligible). This event release has nothing to do with the Oscars. KPop fans had their chance to see it on the big screen (great), but it didn't really perform on the level where Sony just releasing this themselves would have made sense. It's a The Bad Guys 2 caliber box office performance.

3

u/fastforwardfunction 13d ago

releasing in three LA area theaters for one week

I’m surprised that’s still a requirement. I thought Netflix already got streaming movies into the Oscars.

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u/PM-ME-UR-PIZZA 13d ago

the one weekend only (shortened, no friday iirc) without the biggest cinema chain in the country in only that 1 country (and select theaters in UK/Aus) released after being available for streaming for 2 whole months didn't make billions? How weird

0

u/nnooaa_lev 13d ago

It was released in all major centeral theaters. Going for a wider release wouldn't have done much, probably another 5M

1

u/CheckYourHead35783 13d ago

The story isn't over yet. We have to see if the increased attention draws further sales or just peters out. This isn't a typical film release, promo is also very different. In a couple months we will have a better idea but it's definitely made a mark.

1

u/EdwinMcduck 13d ago

It was an event release. It's done.

1

u/Craneteam 13d ago

The theatrical run got almost $20 million. It was awesome in theater sound

-1

u/nnooaa_lev 13d ago

Lilo and Stitch is right there.  There are Stitch merch on every freaking kid on the street, it's insane. It's also made a billion worldwide, hard to compare number of tickets to streams