Now here’s a first: Two months after dropping “KPop Demon Hunters” on Netflix, the streamer is putting the animated hit in theaters — and not just the cursory Oscar-qualifying run its prestige titles get in New York and Los Angeles. This one is going wide, in more than 1,700 venues, for karaoke-captioned screenings in which audience participation is encouraged.
Dress up! Sing along! Give in to the catchy choreography … that’s how it’s done done done!
I’ve been on the Huntr/x train since the beginning and bought tickets to the first screening of the day at Los Angeles’ Alamo Drafthouse theater, where the house was packed with family audiences. They weren’t just in it for the songs either, but gleefully recited most of the dialogue, too. These kids knew the movie by heart, having watched it countless times at home, and now their parents were spending close to $100 to experience it on the big screen.
Next week, the one-of-a-kind cultural phenomenon — in which a trio of Korean pop stars use the positive energy their songs generate to keep soul-sucking ghouls at bay, until evil demons form a rival boy band to steal their fans — is set to become Netflix’s most-watched movie. Clearly, this exclusive two-day event was willed into existence by popular demand, just as any extension or encore Netflix agrees to would also be.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody was begging Netflix to release a sing-along version of Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” three years ago (much less “Emilia Pérez,” back when Netflix was treating that film like an Oscar frontrunner). And even though purists wanted to see Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” in theaters, those movies didn’t sell out nearly as quickly as “KPop Demon Hunters” shows did when Netflix announced its plan last week.
The film is all about fandom, and this unprecedented move from the streaming-first media company suggests that Netflix recognized that the film’s millions-strong audience were craving the collective experience that only cinemas can provide.
Maybe theaters aren’t quite as obsolete as Ted Sarandos would have us believe. Nor is this singular event likely to change how Netflix does business.
First, it’s important to understand what “KPop Demon Hunters” is. Produced by Sony Pictures Animation (the studio behind “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”), the cleverly executed, computer-animated feature looks every bit as slick as the latest releases from Pixar and DreamWorks … which is to say, it could’ve easily supported a big-screen release in the first place.
But that would’ve meant spending millions of marketing dollars, just to let audiences know of the movie’s existence, in a marketplace where opening weekend makes all the difference and films get chased off screen before they’ve had time to build a following. (That’s one reason Sony started selling its animated features to Netflix, which came to the rescue of “Wish Dragon,” from “KPop” co-director Chris Applehans, amid the pandemic.)
Netflix famously keeps streaming numbers to itself, but it’s safe to say that “KPop Demon Hunters” would not have been nearly the same phenom had it gone the traditional theatrical route. This way, the movie benefited from word of mouth, aggregating more viewers as early adopters told their friends to check it out. That’s a luxury streaming releases have. Rrremember “RRR,” the gonzo Tollywood movie that barely made a ripple in theaters, but gained a following on Netflix?
The best analogy here could be Disney’s animated “Encanto,” which did OK business in theaters (this was 2021, when windows were still compressed in response to the pandemic), but really took off when it hit Disney+ 30 days. Only then did the song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” blow up with a very similar demographic.
Perhaps the late shows will draw a crowd of older fans, though I loved sitting through the movie with a room full of chatty kids, one of whom was named Zoey (like the eager-to-please Huntr/x rapper, who fights demons with a glowing three-pronged dagger). Zoey and her friends seemed tickled any time her name was spoken.
Back in June, before the film was released, I asked my friendly neighborhood Netflix reps if there was any way to see “KPop Demon Hunters” on the big screen. They declined. (I’d also hoped it might screen at the Annecy Animation Festival, which unspooled the week prior in France, but for some reason, they brought “Fixed” instead.) I can’t be alone in preferring to watch movies in a theater, although Netflix does their best to make that difficult for audiences.
In Los Angeles, that meant opening them at the Bay, the upscale Pacific Palisades theater that shuttered amid the wildfires earlier this year — quite the shlep to watch Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon” (clearly better on the big screen) or the latest Adam Sandler movie. Now they sprinkle them into art-houses around town, doing what feels like the bare minimum to meet contractual obligations and Academy Awards rules.
With “KPop Demon Hunters,” they opened in at least two dozen Los Angeles theaters, including major chains like Regal and Cinemark — more than doubling the number of screens the studio offered “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” in 2022. But the data-driven company also knew what they had in this case (what every studio wants): a sure thing.
At the moment, three of the film’s original songs — “Golden,” “Your Idol” and “Soda Pop” — sit among the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. And judging by the reaction in the room, “Takedown” (which TWICE sings over the end credits, and the audience couldn’t resist echoing) could soon join their ranks.
Netflix has a full slate of big-screen-worthy movies coming this fall, including Sundance marvel “Train Dreams,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” but however many millions “KPop Demon Hunters” earns this weekend, that doesn’t mean the streamer will rush to open those films wide.
To repeat this experiment, they’d need another proven success with a built-in audience willing to pay to rewatch a film they first saw on streaming. Netflix has the numbers to indicate what time of year certain movies are popular. Maybe a Christmas release of last year’s “Carry On” could work.
Or maybe this is a unicorn event for which we should simply be grateful: For two days only, nonsubscribers can see “KPop Demon Hunters,” surrounded by singing groupies whose enthusiasm willed the streaming phenomenon onto the big screen.
