Audiences can’t get enough of Netflix and Sony Pictures Animation’s singing demon trackers. The “sing-along” version of KPop Demon Hunters topped the weekend box office with $19.2 million in ticket sales through Aug. 24. (The film brought in $10.1 million on Saturday and another $9.1 million on Sunday.) This is a remarkable achievement for the blockbuster movie directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans. The film is on its way to become Netflix’s most popular movie of all time, taking over the 2021 Dwayne Johnson-Ryan Reynolds action-comedy pic Red Notice which has scored 230.9 million total views.
This marks the first time an original streaming movie has become the number one title at the box office (with an exclusive two-day run only). Although Netflix has not disclosed the total box office numbers, industry observers based the tally on the film’s 1,700 sold-out showings on Saturday. Three of the movie’s catchy songs (“Golden,” “Your Idol” and “Soda Pop”) have also landed on Billboard’s top 10 charts. According to some reports, Netflix paid $100 million to produce the movie (with $25 million going to Sony). Sony Pictures Animation is also attached to all the movie’s sequels.
Netflix to Premiere the Sing-Along Version on Monday [Updated at 6 p.m.]
Netflix will premiere the Sing-Along version of the movie on Monday, August 25 worldwide. The release of the KPop Demon Hunters Sing-Along follows the Netflix-hosted the Sing-Along’s one-weekend-only, limited theatrical screening event in 2,180 theaters in the US, Canada, UK/Ireland and Australia/New Zealand with over 1,300 sold-out screenings across the US and Canada.
As part of the weekend’s events, the film’s voice cast Arden Cho, May Hong, Ken Jeong, vocalists REI AMI and Kevin Woo, directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans and producer Michelle L.M. Wong surprised fans of all ages in theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Additionally, the Empire State Building was lit up “Golden” on August 22, as part of a Music-to-Light Spectacular to kick off the weekend, in partnership with Netflix and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE) and with support from iHeartMedia. Fans in New York were also treated to a one-of-a-kind sing-along double-decker bus experience in Manhattan throughout the weekend.
Since its release on Netflix on June 20, KPop Demon Hunters has skyrocketed to become the most popular Netflix original animated film of all time, and is the first original animated film to enter the Most Popular Movies List (English). KPop Demon Hunters (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film) has dominated the charts this summer, boasting over 3 billion global streams to date, with breakout hit “Golden” hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The other animated release of the week was the English-language version of China’s Ne Zha 2, which is the fifth highest grossing title of all-time at $2.15 billion. The original Mandarin-language version was released in February in the U.S. A24 released the English-language version this Friday, which grossed only $1.4 million at 2,228 theaters (only $628 per screen) and landed at the No. 13 spot on box office chart. As one reddit user pointed out, “We are now a nation of KPop lovers….our relationship with Ne Zha has ended!”
DreamWorks’ The Bad Guys 2 continues to do steady business at the No. 5 box office spot for the weekend. The Universal title, which opened on August 1, now has a worldwide gross of $149.1 million (U.S. cume of $66.178 million)
Meanwhile in Asia, the Japanese blockbuster Demon Slayer: Kimestu no Yaiba: Infinity Castle added another $10.5 million to its cume. The Crunchyroll/Sony title, which was first released in Japan on July 18, has amassed a healthy $201.254 million worldwide (with $175.2 million from theaters in Japan alone). The movie will be released in the U.S. on Sept. 12, and industry observers are predicting an opening weekend landing somewhere between $20 milion to $29 million.
Sources: Boxofficemojo, Deadline.com, Variety. This story was updated on Aug. 25.
