“KPop Demon Hunters” Breaks Netflix Viewership Record
A summer hit, “KPop Demon Hunters” has just broken the world record for the number of views for a film on Netflix, the platform announced on August 26. The animated film confirms its status as a cultural phenomenon with the triumph of its original soundtrack in the charts at the same time, note the American and Korean press.
The most popular K-pop group of the moment is fictional. It's Huntr/x (pronounced Huntrix), whose three members, Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, are the heroines of KPop Demon Hunters , “the most-watched film in Netflix history,” reports Hollywood magazine Variety . The American streaming giant announced on August 26 that the animated film, steeped in references to South Korean popular culture, has had 236 million views since its release on June 20.
KPop Demon Hunters thus dethrones Red Notice, an action comedy starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, released by Netflix in 2021 (just under 231 million views). To arrive at these figures, Netflix divides the total number of hours watched worldwide by the length of the feature film – in other words, two viewers watching half the film counts as one view.
This record confirms the success of the film co-directed by Seoul-born Canadian Maggie Kang and American Chris Appelhans. A triumph that did not escape The Korea Herald . The Korean English-language daily recalls that the film follows “a group of three female artists who must juggle their stadium concert tours with their identity.”
Courrier International
