The Big Problem With Netflix Banking On ‘KPop Demon Hunters’

Netflix earnings are later today, and you will probably hear the words KPop, Demon and Hunters dozens of times throughout the report. The animated hit has swept the world, resulting in everything from it being Netflix’s best-performing movie ever, to breaking Billboard chart records, to its central girl group being the top three most popular Halloween costumes this year.

While KPop Demon Hunters is now a huge IP for Netflix and will be a boon for them this fiscal year, there is a clear difference between this being a hit and something like Stranger Things or Wednesday. KPop Demon Hunters is 96 minutes long. And it will take years to get another 96 minutes.

This is the first time Netflix has created a super-IP out of a movie, not a show. You can look at Netflix’s next nine most-viewed movies ever, and it’s almost laughable how culturally irrelevant literally all of them are (Red Notice!), no matter how much they were watched for a few weeks a few years ago. KPop Demon Hunters stands alone.

The main problem here is the time between now and an inevitable sequel, and what will or will not be released in that gap. We can look toward the studio that made and animated KPop Demon Hunters, Sony Animation, and their other big hit, the Spider-Verse movie series for a preview. Here are the release dates for those movies:

• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – December 2018
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – June 2023
• Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse – (maybe) June 2027

That is 4-5 years between movies, given the work required, especially the gorgeous, signature animation, which KPop Demon Hunters also has. That means if KPop Demon Hunters was out in June 2025, we’re talking 2028 at the earliest for a sequel, though 2029 or 2030 being more likely.

Netflix reportedly thinks of KPop Demon Hunters as its Frozen-level IP, but this is Netflix; it is enormously resistant to releasing anything in theaters, so you’re not getting the $1.27 billion gross of Frozen or the $1.45 billion of Frozen 2 (which, incidentally, were six years apart). You’re getting some amount of subscriptions allegedly driven by this, but the value proposition is not the same.

It is possible more KPop Demon Hunters projects come in the interim, but we’ve gotten more information about what isn’t coming than what is. We know the directors, Sony and Netflix are all in negotiations about sequel(s), and presumably, work on those has not started yet without one. Director Maggie Kang has shot down one potential idea, a live-action version of the movie, saying it would never work (most fans don’t want that anyway). There has been an animated prequel KPop Demon Hunters short rated for release, but we’ve heard nothing about that officially, and that wouldn’t be more than 5-10 minutes long, most likely.

The most obvious idea besides sequels might be a KPop Demon Hunters TV show, but you would be getting into an entirely different animation style as if it’s going to take 4-5 years to make another 90-minute movie, you’re not having Sony animate a six-hour series of 25-minute episodes. And those who made the movie would be busy…making more movies. That said, it would be widely watched. The main concern would be quality and if it could taint the IP if it fails to deliver on that front.

KPop Demon Hunters is a wild hit for Netflix, and we have never seen anything in the streaming space like it. But going forward, Netflix is going to continue to have to rely on ongoing series. In the wake of the end of Stranger Things and Squid Game, it’s turning toward potentially endless seasons of Wednesday and Bridgerton, which are still putting up top numbers. And looking at other hits from Adolescence to Dahmer, it’s clear that it’s impossible to predict every breakout hit that will emerge from the service.

Yes, absolutely KPop Demon Hunters is a great IP for Netflix going forward. And we’re going to be talking about it again when it wins an Oscar or two next year. But long term? Without some corner-cutting, it’s going to be years until we see a true return of the franchise, which as of yet, is not actually a franchise.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.