‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Beats ‘Squid Game’ To Become Netflix’s No. 1 Hit

KPop Demon Hunters has now overtaken Squid Game to become Netflix’s most watched title ever, according to the streamer’s latest stats on its official Tudum page. Previously the first season of Squid Game held onto the top spot for four years.

This means that the two most popular titles in Netflix history are both works that are grounded in Korean culture. Squid Game is a South Korean production; KPop Demon Hunters, though produced by the American studio Sony Pictures Animation, features elements of Korean art, architecture, mythology, shamanism, food and pop culture embedded throughout the film.

A story about a trio of K-pop stars who fight to save the world from demons using music and Korean-style weapons, it’s the first animated English-language movie to present Korean culture at such scale and in such vivid detail. In fact, practically every scene in the movie contains references to Korean culture, language and/or history—a remarkable feat that was made possible by the vision of its Korean-Canadian co-director Maggie Kang and a production crew that included many Koreans.

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Netflix ranks its titles based on total view count during the first 91 days after release. Views are calculated by dividing the total number of hours watched by the content’s total runtime.

To date, KPop Demon Hunters has amassed 266 million views, beating Squid Game season 1’s previous record of 265.2 million views. The English-language series Wednesday is Netflix’s third most popular title ever with 252.1 million views, while the heist flick Red Notice comes in at fourth with 230.9 million views.

Contrary to most other Netflix titles, which tend to lose steam over time, KPop Demon Hunters has sustained impressive viewership since its June 20^th premiere more than two months ago, largely due to fans watching it on repeat. A sing-along version that was released on August 25^th further boosted the film’s weekly view tally from 25.4 million over the previous week to 30.1 million for the week of August 25^th—the highest weekly view count for the film since its release.

Of course, this isn’t even counting the numbers from the sing-along’s two-day theatrical release last month, which topped the box office for the weekend of August 23^rd and was estimated to have brought in between $18 million and $20 million.

The film’s soundtrack also continues to generate just as much buzz, with “Golden” currently topping the Billboard Hot 100 for a third week. Last week KPop Demon Hunters became the first soundtrack to have four simultaneous top 10 songs in the chart’s 67-year history. All eight of the original songs from the soundtrack are still in the Billboard Hot 100. Over on Spotify, the top five spots on its weekly US songs chart are all occupied by tracks from KPop Demon Hunters, with “Golden” claiming No. 1 followed by “Your Idol,” “Soda Pop,” “How It’s Done” and “What It Sounds Like,” in that order.

With the film’s ongoing momentum showing no signs of stopping, many industry observers are now speculating that KPop Demon Hunters could score two Oscar nominations—one for Best Animated Feature and one for Best Original Song—and maybe even at least one Oscar win. A double nomination for the movie would be historic, as no anime-style film has ever been nominated for more than category at the Academy Awards.

Since it hasn’t been 91 days yet since the release of KPop Demon Hunters (there are still roughly two weeks left to go), the movie is expected to rack up even more viewership, further cementing its lead in Netflix’s all-time global rankings. And with the film’s cast and directors continuing to make media appearances (Arden Cho and May Hong recently appeared on Good Morning America, for example, and EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami—who provide the singing voices for the Huntr/x members—are slated to present at the MTV VMAs this Sunday), it seems that KPop Demon Hunters keeps goin’ up, up, up.

Both the original and sing-along versions of KPop Demon Hunters are available to stream on Netflix.

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