Picture: Sony Pictures Animation
K-Pop: Demon Hunters (working title) has long been rumored to be coming to Netflix but this summer, we got official confirmation that the new movie is heading to our screens in 2025. What can we expect and who’s behind the movie? Here’s everything you need to know.
March 2021 was the first time the public was made aware that Sony Pictures Animation was working on a new project alongside some first-look concept art (see embedded below).For any long-time followers of our site, you’ll know we’ve been working on this story for quite some time. In fact, we first reported that Netflix was eyeing the project for its lineup in April 2022, with Sony Pictures’s movie chief backing that up nearly a year in February 2023, saying, “We made a few direct-to-platform films for them. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” And we’re making a big animated K-Pop musical.”
Netflix themselves officially confirmed that they’d be releasing the movie as part of their Next on Netflix Animation reveals back in June 2024.
Picture: Sony Pictures Animation
Who’s working on K-Pop: Demon Hunters?
Sony Pictures Animation is the main studio behind the film, and the animation studio has become a force to be reckoned with in recent years. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and the follow-up Across the Spider-Verse have really put the studio up there with the big dogs in addition to their back catalog of titles like Angry Birds, Smurfs, Open Season, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania.
The studio has also worked with Netflix before, with the streamer distributing three movies in 2021: The Mitchells vs. the Machines from Mike Rianada and Jeff Rowe, Wish Dragon from Chris Appelhans and Vivo from Kirk DeMicco and Brandon Jeffords. On the series side, they were behind Agent Elvis and the upcoming series for Ghostbusters and Motel Transylvania. Sony Pictures Imageworks is also working on the feature film.
The film brings together a talented creative team led by directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, both known for their distinctive storytelling styles in animation. Kang’s credits include The Lego Ninjago Movie, Rise of the Guardians, and Puss in Boots, while Appelhans helmed the aforementioned Wish Dragon movie. Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan are writers on the movie.
Aron Warner and Michelle L.M. Wong serve as producers, with the former drawing on his Oscar-winning experience from projects like Shrek. Mingjue Helen Chen worked on the project as a production designer, while Ami Thompson handles art direction. Ian Eisendrath is attached as Executive Music Producer.
What is K-Pop: Demon Hunters about?
Described as a “musical action adventure,” Netflix notes that the title is currently a Working Title (meaning it’s subject to change). The synopsis reads, “K-Pop: Demon Hunters follows the story of a world-renowned K-Pop girl group as they balance their lives in the spotlight with their secret identities as bad-ass demon hunters, set against a colorful backdrop of fashion, food, style, and the most popular music movement of this generation.”
From the clips released from the movie thus far (embedded below or found on Vimeo here), you can see that the movie features a similar animation style to the Spider-Man movies in that it uses a stop-motion effect to give the character’s movements more weight.
When Will K-Pop: Demon Hunters be released on Netflix?
Officially, Netflix has only confirmed a broad 2025 release for the animated movie as part of the Next on Netflix Animation event. That said, according to Jeff Newman, who joined the project this year as Associate Editor, the movie will “premiere on Netflix in late 2025.”
Pictures: Netflix / Sony Pictures Animation
Also, before we leave you, the image at the top of this article had some hidden metadata that’s awesome for animation geeks and rarely seen by the public. The output is detailed metrics from a 3D rendering session, specifically with the Arnold renderer and Katana for that image, which took fifteen minutes to compile.
“Arnold 4.13.11 OSL 4.259.1
Katana Build 00:00:41 (19.80%)
Arnold Build 00:01:04 (88.44%)
Render Time 00:15:27 (95.55%)
Core Time 00:59:17 (render time x #cores)
Peak Memory 9.1 GB (1.3 GB unaccounted)
Rays/Pixel 715
Converged 96.59% (AA=8 to 24, th=0.02)
Triangles 17.2M ( 18.0M instanced)
Hairs 306.4K ( 27.1M segments)
Lights 16
Texture I/O 1.3 GB (39.7 GB on disk)”
For more upcoming Netflix Original animated movies coming soon, keep returning to What’s on Netflix. Are you looking forward to watching K-Pop: Demon Hunters when it drops on Netflix? Let us know in the comments down below.
