KPop Demon Hunters is a box office success. Will more Netflix movies play in theaters?

By Dan Girolamo Published August 25, 2025

This past weekend, fans of Huntr/x and the Saja Boys could experience the music of KPop Demon Hunters in theaters. In a rare move, Netflix released a special sing-along version of their hit animated movie on August 23 and 24.

KPop Demon Hunters opened with an estimated $18 million and won the domestic box office weekend in just two days. While Netflix has not reported the full gross, studios and exhibitors have the sing-along movie with a higher weekend total than the third week of Weapons. Zach Cregger’s innovative horror grossed $15.6 million over the weekend.

What’s more impressive is that KPop Demon Hunters only played on 1,700 screens, while Weapons was in 3,631 theaters. Never underestimate the power of K-pop fans and their ability to support their favorite acts, which now includes Demon Hunters.

Netflix has now made the sing-along version available to stream worldwide.

Directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, KPop Demon Hunters follows Huntr/x, a K-pop girl group who are secretly a demon-hunting team who fight to protect their fans from the underworld. In an effort to defeat Huntr/x, the demon world creates Saja Boys, a group of demons disguised as a rival boy band.

KPop Demon Hunters is now one of Netflix’s biggest success stories. Now the second most-watched Netflix movie, the animated musical should eventually pass Red Notice for the top spot.

The music has also infiltrated pop culture and the music charts. Three of the movie’s songs — Golden, Your Idol, and Soda Pop — are in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. The soundtrack is the No. 2 album on the Billboard 200.

Netflix has undoubtedly won the streaming wars thanks to its 300 million paying subscribers. However, the streaming giant is slowly loosening its restrictions on playing its movies in theaters.

To meet the Academy’s requirement for Oscar eligibility, Netflix runs its prestige titles in limited theaters in New York and Los Angeles. That will continue as long as the streamer cares about winning Oscars.

In 2022, Netflix released Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery in roughly 600 theaters for nearly one week around the Thanksgiving holiday. The film grossed around $13.1 million, the highest-ever theatrical total for a Netflix movie at the time. Glass Onion then streamed on the service one month later on December 23.

Netflix’s biggest theatrical test comes in 2026 when Greta Gerwig’s Narnia will receive a theatrical run on November 26, 2026. The film will play exclusively on 1,000 IMAX screens for at least two weeks. Narnia then streams on Netflix on December 25, 2026.

If Narnia becomes a hit in theaters, it could be the tip of the iceberg for Netflix’s theatrical business. Until then, the streaming giant will continue to build its subscriber base and cross that theatrical path in a year.