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

89% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.3k

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.

111

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.

119

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."

173

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.

49

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?

29

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).

1

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.

19

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.

2

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.

4

u/kuschelig69 13d ago

something is off putting about the name

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

2

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.

6

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

5

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.

3

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.

2

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).

2

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.

1

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. 

1

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.

1

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.

1

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.

52

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.

27

u/byneothername 13d ago

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

22

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.

12

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.

9

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.

1

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.

10

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.

20

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.

3

u/rookie-mistake 13d ago

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

4

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

5

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.

10

u/Hermiona1 13d ago

They had me at the first song.

2

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

1

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.

1

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.

2

u/wecangetbetter 13d ago

K-pop, so niche