Talks are under way to make a sequel to streaming hit KPop Demon Hunters, according to reports.
The animated film, directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, has become Netflix’s most watched film of all time with more than 236m views, and a “singalong” version topped the North American box office last weekend after a brief cinema release, with an estimated $19.2m in takings. (Netflix does not routinely report its viewing or box office figures, and no estimate is available for a similar type of cinema release in the UK.)
While no details about the sequel have been confirmed, it is expected that Kang will return as director; she had the original idea for KPop Demon Hunters, before Appelhans (director of 2021 animated feature Wish Dragon) was brought on board.
KPop Demon Hunters is about three-member girl group Huntr/x, and focuses on lead singer Rumi, but in an interview with Variety in July, Kang suggested that a sequel might focus on fellow band members Zoey or Mira. “We’ve set up so much for potential backstory. Obviously, there’s a lot of questions that are left unanswered and areas that are not explored, and we had to do that because there’s only so much movie you could tell in 85 minutes … This was Rumi’s story, and we have backstories for Zoey and Mira.”
The complex commercial relationship between Hollywood studio Sony, which developed the project, and Netflix, which distributed it, means that while the latter profited enormously from its success, both organisations need to agree on terms before production on a sequel can go ahead. The film was produced as part of a deal between Sony and Netflix in 2021 for direct-to-streaming films in which Netflix reportedly paid for its $100m budget as well as an upfront payment of $25m to Sony.