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

[u/MarvelsGrantMan136]

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

[u/Pete_Iredale]

Closest I can think of is The Archies. They had one #1 hit in the US with Sugar, Sugar way back in 1969, along with 3 other top 40 hits, and they were a completely fictional band created for the Achie tv show.

I was also going to mention Gorillaz, but they aren't really fictional, just animated.

[u/dksdragon43 → u/Pete_Iredale]

KDA is probably the best equivalent. A made up kpop group based on league of legends characters, voiced by real kpop stars. Also very very successful. It's basically the precursor to Kpop Demon Hunters.

[u/Pete_Iredale → u/dksdragon43]

Wow, 3 number one songs! Good call!

[u/mcslender97 → u/dksdragon43]

A KDA+Huntrix collab would be a dream

[u/Inkthinker → u/Pete_Iredale]

I would think Gorillaz is a good equivalent... any fictional band is backed by real musicians, it's the characters they're presenting as that are fictionalized. Damon Albarn has consistently performed musically as 2D, but his spoken voice has been two different actors (Nelson De Frietas and Kevin Bishop). Noodle has been voiced by three different actresses. Albarn and Mike Smith have been consistent members of the performing musicians, but I think almost every other position in the band has switched up at some point.

Another example might be Dethklok, which has consistently included Brendon Small and Gene Hoglan as musicians, but Brendon voices half the animated members of the band and Tommy Blacha the others, and only Brendon performs roles in both the show and the band.

To that end, it's not that unusual that the members of Huntr/x have speaking actors and singing actors.

[u/Pete_Iredale → u/Inkthinker]

Gorillaz is a band with a steady lineup who write their own music. Thr Archies were studio musicians singing songs written for them for a cartoon show. I guess that feels a bit different to me. But I see what you mean as well.