Netflix Is Officially Changing KPop Demon Hunters 2's Release Strategy

3 hours ago 9

Published Sep 30, 2026, 10:34 PM EDT

Brennan Klein (he/him) is a senior news writer at Screen Rant, host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast, and contributor at Alternate Ending and Horror Press. He has been writing and podcasting about pop culture (especially horror movies) for over a decade at platforms including Blumhouse, Fangoria, Dread Central, The Backlot, and Arrow in the Head.

KPop Demon Hunters 2 is being given the chance to shine like it was born to be.

The upcoming movie is the sequel to 2025's KPop Demon Hunters, a Netflix original movie musical produced by Sony Pictures Animation that followed Huntr/x, a KPop girl group who moonlight as demon hunters and face off against the demonic boy band Saja Boys. The original movie was a smash hit, garnering 325.1 million views during its first 91 days on the platform, making it the streamer's most-watched movie in history. It later won two Oscars (Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song). The in-development sequel will feature the return of original directors and co-writers Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans.

Per TheWrap, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has confirmed that the upcoming KPop Demon Hunters 2 will receive a “broad theatrical release” while speaking about the project at the entertainment conference Bloomberg Screentime on Wednesday. He continued, saying, "What we’re doing is looking at this model and saying, ‘okay, how do we serve movie lovers who may want to see this movie in a theater,’ and ‘how do we not harm value to Netflix?’ And ‘how do we position the film best in the world?’”

This is a major departure from the release pattern of the original movie, which debuted exclusively on Netflix on June 20, 2025 but did play in theaters in a special Sing-Along edition for two non-consecutive weekends. After debuting in theaters in late August (at which time it took No. 1 on the North American chart, toppling the Zach Cregger horror hit Weapons after it spent two weekends at the top of the chart), the Sing-Along presentation returned over Halloween weekend that year.

Overall, the theatrical release of Netflix's KPop Demon Hunters grossed $24.3 million at the domestic box office over the course of just five non-consecutive days, making it the 71st highest-grossing 2025 release in North America. Below, see a breakdown of some of the most prominent domestic releases of 2025 that it outgrossed:

Rank

Title

Domestic Gross

#71	KPop Demon Hunters	$24.3 million
#73	Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere	$22.6 million
#74	The Woman in the Yard	$22.4 million
#80	Companion	$20.8 million
#83	Until Dawn	$20.2 million
#88	Caught Stealing	$19 million

This move toward broader theatrical distribution is thus a major change that is seemingly reflective of the original movie's ability to connect with theatrical audiences, even months after it originally debuted. It is also reflective of the way that Netflix is reassessing their typical approach to theatrical distribution.

Although most theatrically released Netflix originals in the past received cursory, limited releases, there are several upcoming projects that are receiving more lavish runs in theaters. This includes the buzzy Spanish LGBTQ+ drama La Bola Negra, which will be given a 45-day theatrical window, which is the longest in Netflix history. Greta Gerwig's Chronicles of Narnia movie, The Magician's Nephew, has also been set for an unprecedented wide release with a 45-day window. It will also be playing on IMAX screens, as will the upcoming Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood sequel The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth.

However, this KPop Demon Hunters announcement is not necessarily an indication that Netflix is going to fully pivot to theatrical releases for their projects. Sarandos followed up the announcement by saying that “movies in the box office are not necessarily bigger on Netflix." Read his full comments on the subject below:

The most passionate audience went to see it in the theater, so by the time it comes to Netflix, you’ve lost that passionate audience, and you got the people that go, "Oh, I meant to see that," or "I’ll get around to that. Train Dreams, last year... That could have played in the theaters for six months and … it would have done net positive to those kind of arthouse films, and then the other end is the four quad[rant] family rewatch movie … so we said, "let’s take those two and treat them different."

Regardless of Netflix's long-term intent with their theatrical releases, they are setting up KPop Demon Hunters 2 as a potential smash hit at the box office. If the at-home audience for the movie translates to theatrical interest, it could potentially be an all-time hit. To compare, if every one of the original movie's 325.1 million global viewers had paid $12 to see it, it would have made $3.9 billion, which is significantly more than the $2.924 billion earned by the current highest-grossing movie of all-time, 2009's Avatar.