"I'm done hiding, now I'm shining like I'm born to be." That's the chorus of HUNTR/X's hit single "Golden," which shot to the top of the Billboard Global 200 not just once but twice as the film "KPop Demon Hunters" has become a bonafide blockbuster for Netflix.
Produced by the team at Sony Pictures Animation, who also brought us the "Spider-Verse" films, "KPop Demon Hunters" follows the exploits of a K-pop girl group that, as the title quickly explains, hunts demons. But they find their toughest match
when the demons use their own weapon against them, forming a demon boy band that threatens to destroy everything the girls in HUNTR/X hold dear.
Using the power of song and dance to protect the human world from demon interlopers, the film uses the infectious beats of Korean pop music to bring the classic genre of animated musicals into the 21st century. The result is a film that combines the deeply felt emotions of animated musicals with the kick-butt action of Korean cinema. K-pop fans around the world have discovered the film, and it quickly broke records when the film launched on Netflix in June, but its latest record is HUNTR/X's greatest accomplishment yet.
Read more: The Best Way To Watch The Original Looney Tunes Now That They're Not Streaming
KPop Demon Hunters Is Now Truly Golden As Netflix's Most Popular Animated Film Of All Time
In its first week on Netflix, "KPop Demon Hunters" scored a respectable nine million viewers online, but thanks to a strong 97% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and a string of catchy earworms, the film went viral and swept in over 24 million viewers in just its second week. With the growing fanbase for K-pop around the world, that's not totally surprising, but what is positively wild is that the film hasn't shown any signs of slowing down.
Because in the film's sixth week alone, "KPop Demon Hunters" raked in another 26.3 million viewers and clinched the title of Netflix's most popular animated film of all time. With competition from Oscar-nominated films like "Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio," 2023's viral hit "Nimona," and the jolly Santa Claus origin story "Klaus," this is a major win for the Sony Pictures Animation team. On their rise to the top, they also bested the king of Netflix himself, Adam Sandler, and his animated comedy "Leo."
This massive success has led to Netflix calling it their version of "Frozen", with the streamer planning everything from a stage musical, a live-action remake, a TV series spin-off, and a full trilogy of animated films with a short film to "bridge" the long development time it will take to get any of this off the ground. In a time where the box office is littered with sequels and remakes, it's inspiring to see an original animated film thrive in the streaming era thanks to creatives who aren't afraid to tell their own bold and unique stories. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go back to streaming "How It's Done" for the millionth time.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
