'KPop Demon Hunters' sets Netflix record: What to know about the sing-along event
Just days after it hit movie theaters nationwide as a special two-day sing-along event, "KPop Demon Hunters" has set a new record on Netflix.
The animated musical is now the most popular film of all time on Netflix's Most Popular English Films list, with 236 million total views, the streaming giant announced Tuesday.
The action-packed film, which premiered June 20, follows a world-renowned K-pop girl group balancing their lives in the spotlight with their secret identities as demon hunters.
The movie stars Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong and Ji-young Yoo.
On Aug. 23 and 24, the movie was watched by fans in movie theaters across the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand as part of a limited theatrical screening event.
Netflix also announced Tuesday that the sing-along version of the film, "KPop Hunters Sing-Along," seen in theaters, is now also available to stream.
In addition to the film's record-breaking success, its viral song, "Golden," also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 earlier this month.
The song, which is by the fictional K-pop girl group Huntr/x and performed by EJAE, Audrey Nuna and REI AMI, made history as the first No. 1 Hot 100 hit by a female K-pop group, with nearly 32 million streams, 7,000 sales, and 8.4 million radio airplay impressions in the United States, according to Billboard.
The achievement also marked the first Hot 100 No. 1 by any act with a fictional background since "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Encanto in March 2022, as well as the first female group track to do so since Destiny's Child in 2001.
The track, which spent a second consecutive week atop the Billboard Hot 100 list this week, has surpassed 3 billion global streams to date, according to a press release.
The directors of "KPop Demon Hunters," Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, have previously said that they collaborated with experienced K-pop producers knowing how important the movie's soundtrack would be to fans.
"Because we wanted the music to be really incredible and really speak to the K-pop fans and be legitimately fit into the K-pop space, we felt that it was important to partner with a Korean label," Kang said during a Netflix press interview, per BBC.
