‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Ends Historic Netflix Top 10 Run: How It Became the Streamer’s Biggest Ever Hit

The world changed 91 days ago when KPop Demon Hunters launched on Netflix, sparking a cultural phenomenon unlike anything we’ve seen in years. It’s rare for a movie to capture the zeitgeist so completely and universally. It’s global too, with the film playing on endless repeat in homes worldwide and the soundtrack dominating the summer.

This is Netflix’s first time, the popping of their mega hit cherry. Yes, they’ve had successful TV series before and generated revenue through merchandise and experiences. KPop Demon Hunters represents something entirely different, though, a phenomenon-level IP with genuine franchise potential.

As KPDH reaches its 91-day milestone (which officially ended on September 19th, 2025), Netflix’s key benchmark for its “all-time” rankings, it now sits at 325,100,000 views (541,800,000 hours).

Like any animated film, KPop Demon Hunters has been years in the making. 7 years in fact. Creator and director Maggie Kang envisioned a story deeply rooted in Korean culture, with demonology providing a striking visual that centered on powerful female characters. When co-director Chris Appelhans joined the project, they developed the vision further, and the pivotal decision was made to weave music into the story’s core narrative drive.

Sony announced the movie in March 2021. It would go straight to Netflix. With the world still deep in the COVID pandemic, all studios were scrambling to keep operations afloat. Sony was on a roll of making deals with Netflix for their animated projects, having sold The Mitchells vs. the Machines, Vivo, and Wish Dragon just months earlier. A wise decision at that point in time, but as we would come to find out, in the face of the film’s success, Sony got a bum deal. As reported by Puck News, they walked away with just $20M above production costs.

Netflix walked away with gold in their pocket, though it’s not super clear that they realized that. KPop Demon Hunters was never emphasized by Ted Sarandos in earnings calls. It didn’t get any observable star treatment in pre-awareness through PR or social media. In Your Dreams, coming this November, has been the one animated film highlighted by Netflix since the start of the year. KPop Demon Hunters quietly dropped a trailer on YouTube around a month before release. So we’re going to tell the story of this IP’s debut. We’ll look at it play-by-play, week by week on how KPop Demon Hunters took over the world.  

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Week 1 (June 20th to June 26th):  

• KPop Demon Hunters launches on Netflix on Friday, June 20th, 2025, with a limited theatrical release.
• Maggie Kang tears up as she watches her movie hit Netflix live at midnight.  
• KPDH enters Trending Top 10s in all key markets.  
• Over the weekend, music and lyric videos hit YouTube channels for Netflix and Sony, respectively.  
• The film will be the #1 or #2 trending movie in the US all week.   
• Global engagement for its opening weekend is 9.2M Views, in line with 2nd-tier Netflix animated movies such as Orion and the Dark or The Monkey King.    

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Week 2 (June 27th to July 3rd)

• RottenTomatoes score rises to 97% based on 33 reviews.
• TikTok interest for KPop Demon Hunters surges; the movement has started.  
• In its first full week on Netflix global engagement for KPop Demon Hunters is up over 250% to 24.2M Views. This beats the first full week outing for Leo, at the time Netflix’s biggest animated movie to date, which had 23.6M Views.  
• The film’s soundtrack enters the Billboard 200 at No. 8, the highest soundtrack debut of 2025.

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Week 3 (July 4th to July 10th)

• KPDH softens slightly, down to 22.7M Views. Is the bright light in descent?  We don’t know it yet but the answer is no.   
• Songs from the movie begin charting on Billboard Global 200 — “Soda Pop” by Saja Boys enters Top 10.
• Maggie Kang, Ian Eisendrath, and Chris Appelhans host a Q&A on r/kpop, the main K-Pop subreddit with over 3.5 million members.
• Interest on TikTok peaks at its highest for the main hashtag.

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Week 4 (July 11th to July 17th)

• KPDH is back up to 24.2M views, breaking the standard front-loaded Netflix movie performance pattern.  
• “Golden” by Huntr/x hit No. 1 on the Billboard Global Charts

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Week 5 (July 18th to July 24th)

• KPop Demon Hunters is up again to 25.8M Views and surpasses Leo to become the most-watched animated movie on Netflix of all time

• In the US, the movie scores over a billion weekly minutes viewed per Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings 
• “Golden” hits No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning a multiple-week run at the top.

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Week 6 (July 25th to July 31st)

• KPop Demon Hunters joins Netflix’s all-time most-watched list. What’s on Netflix models that the movie is likely to become the most-watched on the streamer of all time. Maggie Kang dreams:

https://twitter.com/maggiemkang/status/1950285213403111550

• Reporting from TheWrap points to a large expansion of the KPop Demon Hunters franchise, including two sequel movies.
• KPop Demon Hunters content will drive monthly YouTube views for the Netflix Family up by nearly 300% and Sony Pictures Animation up by 4800%!

• The soundtrack rises into the Top 3 albums on the Billboard 200.

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Week 7 (August 1st to August 7th)

• Cumulative views reach 158.8M, KPDH rises to #4 in Netflix’s All-Time English films
• Billboard highlights KPDH as both a charting film & charting album phenomenon.
• KPDH has a drone show in Chicago at the major music festival Lollapalooza as TWICE performs the song ‘Takedown’ during their set.

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Week 8 (August 8th to August 14th)

• Netflix announces that KPop Demon Hunters is going to cinemas for a special “Sing-Along Event”
• The streamer launches dedicated Instagram and TikTok pages
• Hot Topic announces merch
• Entering peak zeitgeist, an Honest Trailer for the movie drops on YouTube.

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Week 9 (August 15th to August 21st)

• KPDH has a third week where it hits over 1 billion minutes on Nielsen (Week 6, 1,027; Week 7, 1,102; Week 9, 1,018)
• KPDH becomes the third film soundtrack in history to have three Billboard Top 10 hits in the same week, joining Waiting To Exhale (1995) and Saturday Night Fever (1977).
• Entertainment Weekly publishes an interview with director Maggie Kang, teasing the possibility of a sequel that would flesh out the backstory.
• Nongshim x KPop Demon Hunters noodles collaboration announced.

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Week 10 (August 22nd to August 28th)

• The sing-along movie drops in cinemas across the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and beyond.
• The Empire State Building lights up gold to celebrate the “Golden Weekend”
• It earns the coveted Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes badge with a 95% score.
• With sell-out screenings, Netflix nets an estimated $20M upside in US box office receipts alone.  
• On streaming, the movie overtakes Red Notice to become the biggest “all-time” Netflix film.  

• A source tells The Hollywood Reporter, “kids are watching Demon Hunters again and again, or six to eight times on average (for some, it’s more).”

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Week 11 (August 29th to September 4th)

• After the special cinema release weekend, the sing-along version drops on Netflix, and KPDH has its biggest individual week of engagement so far. Up 18% to 30M views. Netflix combined both ratings.
• The film overtakes Squid Game as the most-watched Netflix title in history
• Funko Pop releases a KPDH collaboration available for pre-order.
• Novak Djokovic does the “Soda Pop” dance as part of his celebration for winning the U.S. Open

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Week 12 (September 5th to September 11th)

• A KPop Demon Hunters drone show takes place in South Korea
• Nongshim food collab rolls out (limited edition Shin Ramyun, Shrimp Crackers, Shin Toomba Sauce). Forbes reports sell-outs in Korean stores.
• KPDH singing talent, EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami attend the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards

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Week 13 (September 12th to September 18th)

• Jimmy Fallon sings “Golden” for a lip sync battle on The Tonight Show

• KPop Demon Hunters surpasses 300M views, the first movie to do this on Netflix’s all-time 91-day benchmark

• Cumulative streams of the soundtrack cross 1B Spotify plays; Billboard notes ongoing dominance of “Golden”.
• News breaks that a new short animated film, Debut: A KPOP Demon Hunters Story, is likely to hit Netflix imminently.

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Week 14 (September 19th to September 25th)

• Official costumes announced by US Halloween retailer, Spirit.   
• Final all-time numbers: 

Week in Top 10	Week Period	Hours Watched	Views / CVE	Weekly Rank
1	Jun 15 to Jun 22, 2025	15,400,000	9,200,000	2
2	Jun 22 to Jun 29, 2025	40,300,000 (+162%)	24,200,000	1
3	Jun 29 to Jul 6, 2025	37,800,000 (-6%)	22,700,000	2
4	Jul 6 to Jul 13, 2025	40,400,000 (+7%)	24,200,000	1
5	Jul 13 to Jul 20, 2025	43,000,000 (+6%)	25,800,000	1
6	Jul 20 to Jul 27, 2025	43,900,000 (+2%)	26,300,000	2
7	Jul 27 to Aug 3, 2025	43,800,000 (-0%)	26,300,000	2
8	Aug 3 to Aug 10, 2025	43,100,000 (-2%)	25,900,000	2
9	Aug 10 to Aug 17, 2025	43,300,000 (+0%)	26,000,000	1
10	Aug 17 to Aug 24, 2025	42,400,000 (-2%)	25,400,000	1
11	Aug 24 to Aug 31, 2025	50,200,000 (+18%)	30,100,000	1
12	Aug 31 to Sep 7, 2025	42,400,000 (-16%)	25,400,000	2
13	Sep 7 to Sep 14, 2025	37,700,000 (-11%)	22,600,000	1
14	Sep 15 to Sep 21, 2025	35,400,000	21,200,000	2

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So what can we learn from all this? KPop Demon Hunters is lightning in a bottle, but as I outlined in a recent newsletter, lightning in a bottle can’t be your business plan. And honestly, there’s nothing to learn from Netflix’s pre-awareness strategy for this film—their efforts were either virtually non-existent or completely ineffective.

What we CAN learn from is how Netflix responded to the unexpected success. They moved with remarkable speed. The sing-along version hit cinemas within just 10 weeks, despite well-known internal resistance to theatrical releases. They aggressively pursued new merchandise licenses wherever possible, strategically chasing buzz in diverse categories like ramen and Halloween products. Content production also pivoted quickly; the new short film was likely pulled from existing footage and rushed into production. This momentum illustrates that Netflix still has the muscle memory of being a disruptor. Decision-making certainly hasn’t regressed into the bureaucratic structures that might hamper a legacy corporate media business.

Beyond this, one could argue that the movie played to one of Netflix’s biggest strengths: its ability to create exceptional content that appeals to families without being explicitly designed for children. They have a proven track record here. Shows like Stranger Things, Emily in Paris, and Wednesday don’t talk down to younger viewers—they’re high-quality productions that naturally attract all age groups. KPDH follows this same winning formula.

In an era of franchise fatigue and sequel saturation, KPDH proves that original stories can still capture the world’s imagination. Netflix may have stumbled into this success, but its swift response shows they haven’t lost its disruptor instincts. The real test now is whether they can transform this lightning strike into sustainable franchise success because, in streaming wars, capitalizing on genuine cultural lightning strikes becomes the ultimate differentiator. With that in mind, the next 91 days will be just as telling as the first.  

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Emily Horgan is a kids’ media analyst and author of the Netflix Kids Content Performance Report (a new version is now available). She is also a regular collaborator and contributor to What’s on Netflix. In her spare time, she writes The Kids StreamerSphere newsletter on Substack.