For one weekend in August 2025, a movie that had been streaming for two months took the top spot at the North American box office, and every circuit played it except AMC, which had boycotted Netflix over its reluctance to commit to a 45-day theatrical window. The original “KPop Demon Hunters” reached cinemas only through sing-along fan events like that one, and the sequel is now headed for the full version. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos promised that “when the KPop Demon Hunters sequel comes, you can expect a very broad theatrical release”, speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime event on September 30th. The Hollywood Reporter then added on October 20th that Dan Lin, who has just left as Netflix’s film chief, helped secure it. The Hollywood Reporter also notes that Netflix has not officially announced the plan, so what exists today is a stated intention, not a release schedule.
Almost everything around that intention is still open. Deadline and TheWrap, which both covered Sarandos’s remarks, give no distributor for the sequel, no length for its theatrical window and no list of countries, and Netflix’s March announcement of the film named its directors and its studio but no cast. Sarandos, in laying out the strategy, tied the wide releases to films that “should have the potential for a very big upside in the theater”, naming “Narnia” and “KPop Demon Hunters” as the examples. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for the first “KPop Demon Hunters” film.
The Hollywood Reporter also notes that Netflix has not officially announced the plan, so what exists today is a stated intention, not a release schedule.”
Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans are returning to write and direct, and Netflix’s March 12th announcement says the sequel is the first project out of its exclusive multiyear writing and directing partnership with the pair across animation. “I feel immense pride as a Korean filmmaker that the audience wants more from this Korean story and our Korean characters”, Kang said in the statement, and she closed it with “This is only the beginning”, a line Netflix also put in its subhead. Appelhans said the characters “are like family to us”, and that their world has become a second home. Sony Pictures Animation is the studio behind the film again, and its presidents, Kristine Belson and Damien de Froberville, said they were “thrilled to work with them to expand their vision in the next chapter”, though the statement offers no date or cast.
No voice cast has been named for the sequel, so the only cast on record is the original’s. Deadline lists Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong) and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) as the members of the girl group HUNTR/X, with Lee Byung-hun voicing their biggest demonic enemy. Variety, for its part, identifies EJAE as the singing voice of Rumi, and IGN credits the film’s singers as EJAE, Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna. Netflix’s announcement did not say who returns, which leaves open whether the same performers carry the next chapter.
Sony’s position is more complicated than it looks. Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja said at a Bank of America conference in September 2025 that the film was made under the studio’s 2021 output deal with Netflix, that “Netflix paid the whole cost plus a profit premium to us”, and that “At the time it made sense, but in hindsight you think maybe it could’ve been theatrical”, before noting that Netflix had since taken it to theaters. The Hollywood Reporter adds that he said Sony will produce any sequels, that those talks were already beginning, and that Netflix owns the franchise, including the merchandise rights. He also cautioned that “It started out on Netflix, and word of mouth made it grow. In theatrical that is a lot harder to do”, a warning the sequel may have to answer.
The original’s numbers are what Netflix is betting on. Deadline reports that the film drew 325.1 million views in its first 90 days and spent 63 consecutive weeks in Netflix’s Global Top 10, and Netflix’s own March announcement says it has passed 500 million views since its debut in June 2025. Netflix calls it the most popular film in its history. The sing-along screenings supplied the first theatrical data point, and Deadline puts the August weekend at an estimated $19 million over two days. Variety gave that figure as roughly $18 million in November 2025, and it says a return around Halloween added $5 million to $6 million. Deadline put the domestic total near $25 million that month.
Those are event-screening numbers for a film already sitting on Netflix, and they may say little about how a multi-week run for a new release would go. The music, at least, kept pace. Deadline reports that “Golden” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 11th, 2025, and Netflix says HUNTR/X became the first K-pop girl group to top that chart and “Golden” the first K-pop song to win a Grammy. At the Academy Awards in March, the film took best animated feature over “Arco,” “Elio,” “Little Amélie or the Character of Rain” and “Zootopia 2,” per Variety. Variety adds that Kang and producer Michelle L.M. Wong became the first female Asian winners in the category. AFP reports that “Golden” also won best original song, the first K-pop song to do so, and it calls the number the movie’s musical centerpiece and “Rumi’s battle cry, as she reveals to the world that she is also a half-demon”, with lyrics in English and Korean.
The release year is the least settled detail. Deadline’s October report calls the sequel “expected in 2029”, and Variety’s story from the night of the Oscars says it is “reportedly aiming for release in 2029”, a target Variety first described in November 2025 as originally reported by Bloomberg. Variety warned then that plans could change. The Hollywood Reporter’s March story takes the opposite view, saying that no date has been set and that 2029 “is unlikely given how many years it takes to make an animated project of this size”, while adding that Kang and Appelhans were only in the early stages and would turn to the film in earnest after awards season. The Hollywood Reporter’s Spanish-language edition reported in February that Sony Pictures Animation’s leaders signaled the film would not be ready before 2030. Sarandos, for his part, gave no year in the remarks that Deadline and TheWrap quote.
The Hollywood Reporter places the theatrical decision inside a leadership shake-up. It says Lin pushed Sarandos to embrace theatrical further, that the final call was the co-CEO’s, and that Netflix, after years of agreeing only to the minimum time in theaters for awards contention and the occasional tax rebate, is now widening its footprint. Its headline says Netflix fired Lin. Screen Daily reports instead that he is leaving and that Netflix confirmed the news on Monday, and it quotes Sarandos as grateful to Lin “for everything he’s done for Netflix films”, in the company’s statement. Peter Rice replaces chief content officer Bela Bajaria on October 26th and oversees the film team until a new film head is named, per Screen Daily, and The Hollywood Reporter says a commitment to more theatrical releases could be a deciding factor for whoever takes over.
The sequel joins a theatrical slate that is already rolling out. Deadline lists “La Bola Negra” on October 16th, “The Mosquito Bowl” on October 30th, “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” on November 25th, “Ink” on December 11th, “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” on February 12th, 2027, and “Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory” on November 5th, 2027, as films that reach theaters before Netflix. Deadline gives the windows it lists as running from 26 to 50 days, and The Hollywood Reporter describes the “Narnia” plan as a 49-day exclusive run with Netflix handling North America and Sony Pictures Entertainment handling international distribution. It does not say whether the sequel will follow the same split, and that choice will shape how widely a “very broad” release reaches.
Story details, meanwhile, are the other blank. Kang told Variety in July 2025 that “We’ve set up so much for potential backstory”, and she explained that the first film had to leave questions open because “there’s only so much movie you could tell in 85 minutes”. That leaves room for the sequel to go almost anywhere, and a film whose fans already know every song comes with a built-in crowd. The risk is just as plain, because the original grew slowly on a platform where, The Hollywood Reporter notes, it did not take off until several weeks into its run, and a theatrical release gets far less time to find its audience.
What Do You Think? Does “KPop Demon Hunters 2” belong on a giant screen, or was the sing-along event the right size for these fans? Would you want the original voice cast back for the sequel? And should Netflix keep the long theatrical windows going for family films like this one?
See you on the next binge!
