KPop Demon Hunters is one of the biggest movies of the summer, if not 2025. Many used their Netflix subscription to help make it the platform's most-watched original movie of all time, and to say there's an appetite for sequels jam-packed with more chart-topping songs is an understatement. It's wild to think there was once a version of this movie that didn't have music.
Co-writer and director Maggie Kang spoke about the movie at the Busan International Film Festival and said the original vision for the film looked much different from the final product. The music element didn't come into play, Kang explained, until she was starting to think about how the female heroes would conceal their job from the general public (via EW):
It was conceived as a demon hunter thing with a badass group of girls who fight demons, because demon hunting is usually a side job that's done in secret It was like, 'What is their day job?' And K-pop was another thing that was uniquely Korean and popular. It was like the boom of BTS at the time, which was six or seven years ago. And that was the last ingredient that was added in, and it just kind of opened it up.
Kang went on to explain that Korean shamanism believes that music can be used to ward of demons, which is how the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. Using all that her "demon hunters" would become KPop Demon Hunters and capitalize on one of the biggest trends out of Korea in the past decade.
KPop already had a steady presence on American pop charts thanks to BTS, BlackPink, Rosé, and others. In addition to that, Korean-made dramas have also found their way into the mainstream, with popular series like Squid Game capturing award-winning recognition and even spawning reality show knockoffs.
As such, music from the Netflix original is blowing up on streaming and radio charts. It caused some brief confusion with fans curious how an AI-generated song could end up on the pop charts, all before learning that there are actually Korean artists performing the iconic songs of KPop Demon Hunters.
As debate rages on about whether the Netflix film is a true musical or not, I'm sure execs at other streaming services are starting to wonder if they can have the same breakout success with an animated movie of their own. If this means we're about to get a new era of animated movies that mimic the animation style of the Spider-Verse in new ways, I'm 100% on board with that and will be excited to see what's next.
Stream KPop Demon Hunters on Netflix right now, and of course, continue to stick with CinemaBlend as we keep an eye on if a sequel is in the works, and who might be involved if it is. Given the success of the first movie, I'd be shocked if there aren't a number of well-known celebrities who would love to have a cameo role in a followup.
