After the Hype: How Did KPop Demon Hunters Become Golden?

It’s been a few months since its release, and you can not go around the internet or social media, or the world of film without bumping into some form or reference to Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans’ Kpop Demon Hunters. It has pretty much become one of the most important movies of the year, with it being not only the most successful animated film of the year, but probably one of the most successful overall original films alongside Sinners. Sure, you could argue that some of the more financially successful films of the year should be in discussion, but making the most money is one thing; being a cultural touchstone is way more long-lasting than how much money is made. When you beat out a theatrically released Pixar film, which used to be the big event in theatrical animation, you know you have made it big time. With its vibrant animation style, literal chart-topping musical numbers, and a wonderful mix of drama, comedy, and action, whatever small faults the film does have, it isn’t hurting its success. Kpop Demon Hunters is one of the biggest films, streaming or otherwise, of 2025. So, how did we get here? How did Kpop become such a gigantic hit? How did a Netflix-distributed Sony Pictures Animation-made feature become this gigantic Herculean hit? Here are my takeaways!

The popularity of South Korean Media

I recalled in an interview with Maggie Kang that Sony was nervous about the fact that this entire movie was based heavily on South Korean culture, pop music, and media. There was worry about how long theatrical animation takes, and that the pop culture obsession with it would be gone or decreased, but with folks loving it more now than ever, of course, folks were going to like this movie on that level alone. At that point, the fact that it had a great story of identity, love, and freedom to choose your path is just icing on top of all the little details you find about the pop idol industry, who the characters are partially based on, and the songs that just whip. It is funny, because, in a recent report, there is a lack of ordering and demand from streamers for content or media about South Korea. I’m sorry if people aren’t watching your US-made stuff, but maybe stop cancelling shows or movies after one season or making them lackluster for the sake of folks with deteriorating attention spans. 

Lack of any real competition and a family audience starved for films.

The theatrical film industry has starved family audiences by forcing them to only go see superhero movies, live-action remakes, nostalgic sequels, and a scant few animated films spread throughout the year. For example, not counting any of the theatrical live-action films, and the scant few foreign releases that, sadly, no one goes to, there was pretty much no major feature animated film between January and June. Sure, there were a few streaming releases, but in terms of major theatrical feature animated releases, there simply wasn’t much. Unless you were into the superhero movies or the soulless live-action remakes that you all complain about but still go see in theaters, animation fans and families didn’t have much to watch. Kpop Demon Hunters was released at the same time as Pixar’s Elio, but when the hype for Elio wasn’t there, and this was before we heard about its disastrous production history and small advertising campaign, then there wasn’t much to hurt Kpop’s prospects of being one of the most hyped animated releases in June. I normally would be like “well, check out the foreign animated films during these downtimes”, but when most of them were either three-four-episode bundles of upcoming shows or recaps of anime franchises that are hyping up the new season, there wasn’t much to stand in the way of it having anything to halt its dominating path through Netflix and pop culture. 

A film with an identity and story

A huge problem with a lot of US-made animation is the fact that many animated films are made with no real identity unless they get a strong vision behind them from a director. Heck, even some directors, who you would think would have strong identities, were maybe just directing movies that had the perfect storm of production and the release time, you know? A lot of the time, animated films are made with the knowing fact that fans and casual audience-goers will go see them, and maybe a Disney, DreamWorks, or Pixar film will have enough of a compelling story or director to be the obvious standout. Illumination Entertainment makes a lot of money from their films, but except for maybe The Super Mario Bros. Movie or Migration, you wouldn’t say they have an identity outside of the brand and the iconography of the minions. 

With 2025 so far, very few animated films, both foreign and US, have come out by the time Kpop arrived on Netflix the same day as Pixar’s Elio, and when everyone backtracked out of Elio due to it losing its identity due to a nightmare production history, people then started to hear word of an animated film on Netflix that had amazing music, great comedy, a heartfelt story, incredible animation, and most importantly, an identity. Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, the directors of Kpop Demon Hunters, and their team of writers and artists of all kinds crafted a movie about love, identity, freedom, and with some subtle or not-so-subtle jabs and comments about the pop idol industry in South Korea. Like how folks fell in love with The Naked Gun’s effort at writing jokes and not just hoping the actors can improv or riff off of one another, the humor in Kpop Demon Hunters was also a highlight in a film that was legit one of the funniest movies of the year, with its vast library of different style of jokes it delivered. Much of this film’s success was probably because of social media highlighting clips and songs, and having this film crossover with other pop culture shows and movies. It doesn’t hurt, with the music being bangers after two Disney feature films with mediocre music. Well, you can see why folks really clicked with it. It’s a film drenched in South Korean culture and in its identity, and that means a lot more to me as a critic to see an animated feature come out of the production process with some kind of vision intact. 

Sony Pictures Animation and the talent that craft their films earned the audience’s trust. 

We can boringly go on about how they made The Emoji Movie, for which some of you weirdos thought the studio deserved to have died, and how the last film in the Hotel Transylvania franchise was not good. Those same weirdos couldn’t just simply say that those films weren’t for them, and used it as vindication for not liking them. Let’s also be clear with the fact that, before everyone was gushing about DreamWorks doing Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Wild Robot, and those same fans not supporting other non-franchise films, Sony Pictures Animation was already experimenting with the kind of movies they wanted to make. It might not have worked at all times, but they are the reason why the CGI animation in the US animation industry and elsewhere went through a massive changing of the guard with how folks can or should make animated features. Granted, a lot of y’all seem to ignore the fact that many of the more ambitious features that use more stylized visuals tend to be nightmare productions. Also, the fact that TMNT Mutant Mayhem’s solid production doesn’t dismiss the fact that the rigid studio system is not built around making sure creatives have time to make these visuals work. It’s an exception to the rule. Sony was at the forefront of wanting to be different, and for some asinine reason people will still pin them down with the fact they made a bad movie based around Emojis. With the work they have done with the Spider-Verse films and their impact on the animation industry with stuff like The First Slam Dunk, Deep Sea, and even their own upcoming slate of features like Goat, have built up a system of trust with audience-goers, animation fans, critics, and folks alike to experiment and do things a bit different than what other studios are doing. 

Love ’em or hate them, being on Netflix helped this title thrive. 

Let’s get this final piece out of the way first. Netflix is terrible for the film industry. The fact they made so much money with the release of the sing-along version of Kpop Demon Hunters, with it becoming number one at the box office and the titan of pop culture this year, and still won’t put some of their more potentially interesting offerings in theaters unless they have awards potential, is awful for the industry. They want theaters dead, but won’t put in the elbow grease to make animated movies or movies in general to be more interesting and creative unless it’s an animated film made by an outside studio or something from overseas. Netflix does suck in so many ways, but let’s also be real that Kpop Demon Hunters probably wouldn’t have been the big cultural touchstone that it was, if it didn’t have two months building up and bringing hype and views in theaters. Sure, it had the South Korean culture and interest in its production, the hip songs, and so on and so forth, but being an original film in theaters is no longer a guaranteed genuine success. Most of you didn’t go see original films this year outside of Kpop Demon Hunters and Sinners, but you sure as hell went to see so many soulless remakes like How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, and Minecraft. The one thing Netflix generally has over other distributors and Hollywood production companies is that they let creatives get weird or let creatives make something that the main industry sees as a risk. It’s not fully like that anymore, but the fact Sony hesitated about this film’s success and Netflix saw something that was either going to vibe well with its other South Korean offerings like Squid Game or for me, Culinary Class War, or knew secretly that it would turn into this huge event means something. Sure, when a big studio sends a movie to Netflix, it isn’t always a good sign, but let’s also not act like folks don’t watch anything on Netflix when in 2022 The Sea Beast became one of the biggest films in not just animation but of the film scene when it was revealed to be one the most viewed movie of 2022. Guillermo Del Toro won Best Animated Feature with his 2022 film Pinocchio, and is now making a Frankenstein movie because Netflix saw the potential, whereas other studios are doubling down on boring safe bets, because they want the finite amount of money that we all have. Yes, Kpop Demon Hunters made so much money in its limited release, but would that have happened if it did get put into theaters first? Who knows. It probably would have been a small blip because, barring the end product and reception, none of you saw Elio, an original animated feature.  

As usual, and to be clear, these are just my takeaways and absolutely 100% guesses, because at the end of the day, there is no real winning formula with what will be big, what people will like, what critics will like, and what will take the pop culture and film landscape. Most of the time, it’s a wild guess what will do well, but the fact of the matter is that the animation scene needs to start experimenting and doing more with their features instead of just trying to hit a boring, lazy four-quadrant audience who will eat up anything without having a second thought or lasting impression on it. Kpop Demon Hunters left a mark for the reason that it was creative, complex, endearing, fun, and a delightful, memorable experience made by amazing people who deserve more of the money and royalties of this first film’s success on Netflix.