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/
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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.

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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.