One mistake that easily could have been avoided was having the
required Oscar showings the same date as the Netflix release.

If the showings were a couple weeks before (along with the soundtrack)
there would be time to build momentum for the Netflix release
and it probably would have been known earlier the popularity of the movie...

Glad someone pointed this out before I did.

I think the assumptions here that I’m overestimating the popularity of K-pop and the associated K-wave – which very much IS a thing – are literally underestimating the existing fan base that made this movie so popular, and the reasons why. And to say that most of the members of a forum like this are not the target audience is an understatement. Just because ya don’t see it, doesn’t mean it ain’t there! To wit, a number of people in here have stated that their sisters, daughters, wives, colleagues, whomever, have had to explain this or that aspect of the phenomenon to them, and often do so in granular detail, I’m sure.

This supposedly non-existent K-Wave’ has been a thing for a quarter century or more now, and has had a name for nearly that whole time. KPDH didn’t create it; it was just the latest cherry on top. Is K-Pop the second coming? No. Is it as ‘big’ as the biggest U.S. pop stars are in the U.S. and even globally? Arguably no, but it’s no less a formidable beast in its own right. But as noted, just because middle-aged men don’t see something as ‘big’ or ‘popular’, doesn’t mean it’s insignificant, which seems to be the implication in Tanman’s reply to me. This is something that has steadily and stealthily evolved over time, long before KPDH. For generations younger than ours it’s commonplace, just another widely available ‘thing’ that can be enjoyed and shared. Sure, thanks to KPDH, everybody seems to be jumping on some bandwagon that just magically appeared because of Netflix back in June or whenever it debuted, but as I noted earlier, when execs misjudge the market, the market does its thing anyway, albeit with a lot less revenue going to the studios and their potential marketing partners in this case.

Just out of curiosity today, having seen various things about the popularity of the Derpy character, I searched ‘making Derpy’ on YouTube and found countless videos of people making countless cool things featuring this character, some just for fun, others to sell, etc. All presumably unlicensed. Some items would’ve been nice, simple, safe merch to licence with receptive brands early on.

And then there’s the massive amount of merchandise I referred to on Temu yesterday, currently shipping around the globe (well, maybe less so to the U.S. because of, well ya know). Not sure if anyone clicked on the link, but it’s staggering. Yeah, there’s lots of t-shirts, big deal, but there’s also a ton of other unique and novel products that are proliferating so widely now that Sony and Netflix very much will find their own eventual efforts undermined. Will they still make tons of dough on licensing deals? Of course, but they certainly could’ve made more if they’d started small right out of the gate and had the ball rolling long before now. The world is drinking their milkshake, and lots of folks are ‘unofficially’ making some serious coin.

- - - - - - - -

Getting back to the longstanding popularity thing, I posted a few days back about a fairly typical cultural festival I went to last weekend – the kind of modest, local food and music shindig we’ve all been to in one form or another. I went in part to this particular Korean fest because I knew a ‘real’ K-Pop’ group would be playing there for free. I like free. For the first 22 years of this event, the local live performers would draw modest crowds applauding modestly. The last three years with bonafide K-Pop acts have been standing room only with massive overflow – at a friggin’ food festival, for goodness sake! This year like the last two it was a crowd of a few thousand people – that’s not common at these types of things in Toronto, and exceeds the capacity of the little amphitheatre at this public square – and a sizeable portion of that were very devoted fans of a boy group that is barely two years old. I’d never heard of them, but I’m over 40. The crowd knew the lyrics, they knew the dances, many wore merch, and one even passed out at the stage and required medics.

I can only imagine what some of the bigger K-Pop shows are like in arenas and stadiums in both Canada and the U.S. In fact, the massive concert venue of choice here in Canada is the +/- 55,000-seat Toronto’s Rogers Centre (home to the Blue Jays). Good photo showing its scale at this link. Both BTS and Blackpink played sold-out shows there, same as Taylor Swift (for comparison). I believe several other upper-tier K-Pop acts have done the same there.

That shit doesn’t happen if something isn’t already a ‘wave’.

I know I probably come off in this thread as some kind of cheerleader for the wider K-Wave – again, literally a thing, for years now – and K-Pop in general, and I’m fine with that because I actually witnessed it right from the start in the late 1990’s. I think there’s much to enjoy beyond KPDH and just the songs that happened to top the billboard charts. Those are coveted positions to be sure, but that’s not the sole sign of a larger phenomenon, especially among young people for whom the Billboard charts probably barely exist.

Regarding the Billboard chart, though, as RocShemp pointed out, K-Pop acts have been on it for years. Granted, they’re not constantly cracking the top ten, but for East Asian acts to consistently crack well into the top 100 is historically unheard of and highly noteworthy, I think.

- - - - - - - - -

One thing I find interesting about the KPDH songs in particular is that they improve on virtually the entire ‘official’ K-Pop catalog in one crucial way: comprehensible English lyrics. The vast, vast majority of K-Pop songs mix Korean and English with wild abandon and the English is, well, dodgy to put it nicely. Obviously, the KPDH folks needed songs that were nearly fully in English, and which advanced the story or fleshed out the characters as per most animated movie tunes. In that sense, they actually broke away from the now decades-long tradition of K-Pop songs injecting English to appear more ‘international’ and crack the western markets. Against all seeming logic, that actually worked for the Korean music behemoth but honestly, if you watch a random batch of actual K-Pop music videos with the subs turned on, you’ll quickly note that the English is borderline gibberish (less so the rapping portions, but even those are cringey a lot of the time). This is something the industry has long been criticized for, even it if doesn’t stop fans from memorizing the lyrics and singing along. I guess it’s more of a feature than a bug at this point.

So in that sense, the KPDH songs added that one American/Western refinement that rarely happens in Korea: decent, memorizable English lyrics. In fact, if a song like ‘Golden’ was written and performed – as is – by some big American pop titan years ago (Taylor? Christina? Gaga? Miley? Selena?) it would have become another big “this is our moment” anthem for whatever tween-teen-twentysomething generation latched on to it. Personally, I hated those kinds of songs even when my generation recorded them, and the generations before mine, and all the generations since then. Ugh. I find them as shallow and mercenary (and even kinda as lazy) as Christmas albums but they’re a part of the musical landscape, and part of growing up, and there’s always a new one coming along to ‘inspire’ young people about how exceptional they are. Right now, that’s ’Golden’.

Quoting this bit of RocShemp’s again because my curiosity got the better of me, so I looked up the promo (cool that you’re working on BTS, BTW):




Yup, definitely not a wave.

Also, lest anyone think this McDonald’s BTS deal came about solely because of KPDH, this is actually their second collaboration, and I’m sure it’s been in development for a while. Their first one – the BTS Meal – rolled out in fifty countries around the world, including the U.S.

Four years ago.

(also, note the outfits in this old commercial and on the toys on the left in the poster)



^ You can even find plentiful stories online of people around the world saving and repurposing the packaging from those meals into other keepsakes, just to preserve it. And upselling it on eBay of course.

This new promotion with the little figurines will probably be insane for K-Pop fans in general, and not just BTS junkies. They’re even capitalizing on another trend some folks may not think is absolutely huge (), and one that I personally find insidious: blind boxes. The boxes aren’t shown in the posters above, but there seem to be some pics online. Great, evil way to get young folks coming back and stuffing their faces to hopefully snag what I’m sure will be rare or chase figures.

So yeah, we can wait for more K-Pop hits to crack the Billboard top ten as evidence of the existence of a K-Wave, or we can accept that the Wave is already here and enjoy it while it lasts.

Fine sure there's a Kwave. I still think it's happening in a smaller pool then what you're saying. The only point I was trying to make was that not having merch available for this straight to streaming movie was a perfectly fine call to make. There's no way they could have been expected to have merch out on shelves and all these commercial tie ins for KPDH when it released. I'm not saying there aren't massive amounts of rabid kpop fans filling giant stadiums out there. I know there are. I know they're growing. I'm not discounting anything that you're saying. But it's still a piece of a piece of a pie. Fans of a subgenre of music. Also consider that you're in Toronto. That's a very large metropolis with a very large Asian population of course the Kwave will be hitting big in that area. When we're talking movie merchandise tie ins we're talking about a much much bigger audience. Disney, DC, Jurassic Park, MCU, Star Wars. These IPs have a much larger general audience and even these giants of IP aren't putting out merchandise like they used to. We're talking about the average Walmart shopper here. And yeah sure there's a bunch of KPDH stuff on Temu. Of course there is. You can find anything on Temu. It's still a drop in the bucket that the studios couldn't care less about. Plus these are giant corporations they aren't as agile as some random guy with a T-shirt business. It takes time to make the deals and approve the products and all that.

As big as Kpop is, I still think the appeal of KPDH is much wider and is reaching a lot of people that actually aren't in to Kpop.

But I do have a question that draws on your kpop expertise. Is KPDH actually Kpop? I mean of course it is in terms of style and culture and obviously they collaborated with Twice. But it's a movie produced here in the west. Isn't Kpop some corporate well oiled machine churning out groups? Seems like this was developed outside of that. Didn't the singing VA for Sumi "fail" out of "Kpop school"? Is it popular in Korea?

It’s not, but I won’t flood the thread with links and videos proving it. I do think you’re overestimating how much I’m overestimating it. I’ve never drawn comparisons to Disney or Star Wars or Marvel or whatever, but that doesn’t automatically mean that the wave is somehow less significant in its own right.


It was certainly their call to make. It wasn’t the only option. Keep in mind that I’m largely referring to SONY because it started with them, and had it stayed with them, they absolutely would’ve used those four years of development and production time to work up some licensing deals. Maybe not tons of them, but some.

Once Netflix got it, it was treated like everything else they acquire: another thing to watch, the usual big launch before fading away like virtually every other movie they debut. So yeah, if you’re referring to NETFLIX making that decision, that’s practically standard operating procedure for them. This movie simply batted above their standard, unlike so many others.

I’m sure they’re rectifying all of this was we speak. And they’ll make big money on eventual merchandising for sure. Meanwhile, so are lots of other folks who decided to meet the demand earlier with a heck of a lot more than just T-shirts.

Times like these I wish I had more of an entrepreneurial spirit. The supply chain’s already in place for just about anything you can dream up, and rip off!


Like all major concerts, Toronto’s are attended by people from this city, smaller cities, towns, farm communities, other provinces even. People even come up here from the U.S. because there their best option. We go down there, too. I personally know people who travel quite far to see top acts if that the only option. Not my thing. Taylor Swift’s concerts here drew people from all over the world, but she’s an outlier. I’ve seen Reddit threads about K-Pop concerts where people make long trips to see them because there might only be shows in two or three distant cities in the entire country. Toronto or other city dwellers have no real advantages over anyone else in getting tickets nowadays, only in getting to the venue more easily (maybe).


Actually, I’m talking about merchandise tie-ins to K-POP DEMON HUNTERS, a new and, yes, untested IP nevertheless steeped in very well tested pop cultural material that crossed borders years ago. Every ‘studio’ animated feature that has been released theatrically for years now has been accompanied by some amount of tie-in licensing deals for merchandise, toys, food, etc. Sometimes tons of it, other times modest amounts to start. Even if a given movie underperforms and the merch quietly disappears, at least the opportunities were taken, just in case. They weren’t taken in this case.

One could argue that “Well, KPDF wasn’t a theatrical release so they were right to take zero risks and make zero upfront deals”, but the filmmakers pitched it as a theatrical release to Sony, and Sony initially treated it as one.Then they got cold feet and dumped it on Netflix. Obviously, it’s well-reported now that they were wrong to do that. Sure, it might’ve turned out to be a shitty movie that no one wanted to see. But it didn’t. The groundwork for any potential success was already laid, regardless of whether everyone everywhere was aware of it or not.


The “average Walmart shopper” isn’t the entirety of America or Canada, although I’m sure massive portions of both populations shop there, both of us included no doubt. But give people some credit. Just because K-Pop and other Korean ‘stuff’ isn’t the stocked to the rafters in Walmart like aisles and aisles of Disney, Star Wars, Marvel and other IP that have been globally known for decades before K-Pop and the K-Wave even existed, doesn’t mean there’s been no other way to consume it and make it popular.

Also, Walmart shoppers have kids who don’t define ‘popular’ by what they see at Walmart.

(incidentally, Target stores have been selling K-Pop vinyl and CDs for quite some time now).

I just can’t share the belief that because KPDH isn’t a long-established American IP like the ones you listed, then zero marketing was the correct bet, or that Sony was wise to dump the movie because they thought it was too Korean or weird or unfamiliar or whatever. I’m glad the various studios didn’t think that way when they launched new and untested properties like DESPICABLE ME, TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, SHREK, ICE AGE, MADAGASCAR, KUNG FU PANDA, HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, BAD GUYS, and various one-offs. They were all accompanied by licensing deals planned well ahead of and timed to their releases. They didn’t all saturate the market with thousands of licensed collaborations, but they all had some products available just in case the movies were successful.

The problem, as others have noted here, is Netflix. They do tie-in deals for merch aligned with quite a few of their shows (and not just the big ones everybody knows), but it’s often more of an afterthought, after they’ve seen something go viral, so to speak. That’s pretty much what happened with KPDH, too. Sony blew it, and Netflix did what Netflix does, and now they’re playing catch-up.

But hey, it’s all water under the bridge. The movie became a global phenomenon faster via Netflix + social media than it might have in a traditional theater > physical media > streaming journey, anyway. Revenue-wise, well, probably not so much because Netflix never shares that. But we do know they likely made back their $20 million investment on the two-day singalong theatrical run alone, which certainly suggests an earlier theatrical run would hardly have been a flop.


It certainly does, and Sony had four years. Well, they did before they got cold feet, anyway. Again, K-Culture was a thing. They wouldn’t have needed to roll out Disney- or Star Wars- or Marvel-sized saturation licensing deals with a kajillion vendors. But they bailed, so it’s all moot. Not everything has to be marketed like Disney or Star Wars. But something would’ve been cool, had they actually kept the film and trusted its makers.


K-Culture in general (including K-Pop) has had a wide appeal for going on 25 years, increasing steadily all along. KPDH was an excellent vehicle for bringing even more people into that already wide fold.

So was Gangnam Style. In 2012.

Not to mention many other K-Culture and K-Style ‘inroad’ moments (music, movies, endless TV shows, food) that have contributed to the overall wave.

Having witnessed the entire evolution of ‘Hallyu’ from its infancy, I realize there will still be people unaware it, or the size and scope of it. That’s fair, but it can’t be assumed that KPDH brought the rest of it out of obscurity. The movie wasn’t needed for that, but if the carry-on effect is more people discovering what’s been there all along – and immensely popular – I’m ok with it. I’m sure many of those people will disappear just as quickly because the movie was enough for them, and the ‘wave’ will continue on its existing trajectory for some time to come. For those who move on, there’s plenty of other, more established IP for them to go back to, as you noted.


- - - - - - -


It’s an American / Canadian co-production, apparently, and Maggie Kang is Canadian too (and a longtime contributor to several Dreamworks animated blockbusters), born in Korea. From what I’ve seen reported from there, it’s popular in South Korea like it is most other places it’s steaming. I think part of that is because it treats the culture respectfully even though it’s largely a colorful fantasy. Also, contrary to the beliefs of a couple of us earlier in this thread (myself included), it doesn’t delve into the darker side of that well-oiled K-Pop music machine. They kept it fun, and I appreciate that now. It doesn’t qualify as K-Pop, per se, because that term specifically refers to the music (as in ‘Korean Pop Music’), but it’s 100% a reflection of the broader ‘Korean pop culture’ as a global phenomenon – aka the Korean Wave, K-Culture, K-Style. If that didn’t exist as context, there’d be no KPDH. I think its nature as a ‘western’ or ‘Hollywood’ production is partly why it managed to attract even more people – permanently or temporarily – to something that was already substantial.

Totally agree with you. 100% Sony should have kept it and released it theatrically. Can't believe they even lost the music rights. Serves them right.

I still think they made a reasonable call on the merch. Studios have cut back on their merchandising after a few big flops and tons and tons of unsold merchandise. Some of the biggest names in the industry didn't have very much merch or none at all. So I can't imagine any execs at any of the studios starting up the giant machinery required to produce all the product and tie ins on a brand new streaming IP. There's just no way they would risk it. And yeah of course just because something is at Walmart doesn't define what is popular. But those are the kind of economies of scale we're talking about for studios to think that producing merch is worth their time and effort. They aren't after small potatoes.


I do find it fascinating that the biggest Kpop event is an American / Canadian production. Shows how global it is.


Alright I give!

I was wrong you and McDonalds have convinced me there is a huge K-wave sweeping the nation.

You suggested earlier I might be a demon pulling you all in to Korean music and culture. Here is your reward for capitulating, my little soda pop :


^ Quick aside about that: I mentioned last night that our 55,000 seat Rogers Centre stadium has seen a number of top-tier K-Pop groups fill the place. Turns out that while I was typing that (eye-glazing, I know) post, our other big venue, the 20,000-seat ScotiaBank Arena (home to the Raptors) was hosting another top K-Pop group, Babymonster. As mentioned in a followup post, Toronto concerts are not just attended by Torontonians; lots of people far outside the city – even in the sticks – make their way to these venues to see concerts and games, which surely holds true in the U.S. as well. You’ve got a lot more of these mega-venues than we do, and K-Pop tours have cycled though them for years.

I’ll stick with the food fest freebie shows ‘cause I’m cheap, but this looks like quite the show. Less lip-syncing, too.

Possibly. Maybe even "probably," but it does not follow that "real" products will necessarily make more (profit) just because there are knock-offs. Certainly some people look for the official things first, and only settle for the cheap option if they don't find it. But. Many people are attracted to the 'cheap' rather than 'official'.

I wonder if, for the sequel, Nongshim will release ramyun with themed flavors based on the movie, using this actual art.




That and... what the hell would "Superstar Flavor" even taste like?

I agree.

The KPop Demon Hunters movie thread has turned into the Kpop products thread

Yeah I know the majority of this forum probably has no interest in it and there isn't really much else to talk about.

At least part of the counterpoint being made is that ALL movies recently have seemed to have less merchandising. Not that the scale is different compared to Marvel & Superman (even though it obviously is), but that IF there's barely-any tie-ins for Superman, then it cannot be much of a surprise that there are fewer still for this.

Interestingly, both HTTYD and Bad Guys had sequels this year, and - again, may have missed something - I did not see any food or drink tie-in products. I'm sure there were toys, but nothing in the regular foody aisles of WalMart and Kroger.

If it makes you feel better, I just watched the movie for the fifth time, not 30 minutes ago.

It"s such a fun flick, I would gladly buy a physical 4K release if one was made available.

I did get that counterpoint and I do agree that big franchise/tentpole movies don’t unleash the licensing blitzes that they used to, but they do still put enough stuff out there to cross-promote the movies. Maybe we don’t see all of it in the biggest retailers, but the items are out there in the world.

Apparently SUPERMAN did have a modest but respectable (and no, not huge) amount of licensed merch, but my guess is it wasn’t all at, say, Walmart. Probably some of it was available on licensee sites or in their stores, kinda spread in dribs and drabs at various places.

This article provides lists some (all?) of the SUPERMAN brands/vendors and their products. I’mnot sure how comprehensive it is. I’ve definitely seen some of these products in my travels here, but I’m not a merch guy so I tend to glance and move on.

But at least it was there. It was something, mostly keyed to the opening of the film.

KPDH got none of that until much later, and my main point was that they could’ve done maybe one-tenth the number of licenses in that linked SUPERMAN article, or even far less, just to dip their toes and maybe show a little faith in the film. But sadly you folks are right, they had little faith in it so they played it safe, and whipped up a few deals a couple of months later.

I do wonder if the movie might fade in the public consciousness (like most Netflix products do when the Next Big Thing hits the platform) by the time some of that merchandise is even available. I think it was mentioned that the Funko stuff won’t be out until December? Not sure about the noodles but haven’t spotted I them here. Guess we’ll see.


In the case of HTTYD, I probably should’ve clarified I was referring to the older movies and not the live action version. The animated films all had various merch in various places early on. Hardly avalanches as I recall, but still enough to maintain some awareness for the brand.

I didn’t spot much for BAD GUYS 2, just some mini plushies, a display box of little ‘blind bag’ plastic figurines that apparently came in regular colors or gold, and of course mugs and T-shirts, and I honestly can’t remember where I saw those! If there was more, it probably wasn’t much. Those movies don’t appear to have much of a pop culture ‘life’ outside the theatre.

But still, the movie got something. And I’m reasonably confident that KPDH pretty much instantly became a bigger franchise than BAD GUYS.

Same here, but I guess that’ll never happen. How often do Netflix shows get physical releases anymore? I suppose the producers would’ve had to include some kind of clause in a contract or something?

They could probably make some really compelling supplements for it too (ideally more substantial stuff than the dull ‘how to draw’ tutorials and ‘actors goofing at the microphone’ pieces we get on so many discs for animated movies).

I think we already mentioned this but even Frozen didn't get much product when it was first released. Disney vastly underestimated it's popularity. They did have some but not nearly enough to meet demand and now it's still one of the top selling toys. Same with baby Yoda, didn't have any merchandise at all but that was more of a choice to keep him a secret. Bluey is a huge hit now but didn't have much product for awhile. These things take time to build up.

But to lend an anecdote to it's missed opportunity, this morning I was playing KPDH with my 6 year old using her Princess dolls because they didn't have KPDH dolls. But I guarantee you in about 9 months time they'll have a slew of them.

Hey, don't forget --- the KPDH cast will be on GMA Tuesday morning!

Good article in The New York Times today on the film's treatment of fan culture as a major component:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/m...rs-fandom.html

Hey speaking of which, someone made a AI version of Golden:

Here's a cool video listing Easter Eggs and other facts about the movie. Right off the bat, I am surprised I missed the Powerpuff Girls reference.



You can select an English language dub of the video in the YouTube player settings.

Frozen had a lot of product, but it was a bigger hit than expected so that product was obviously not enough. But that kind of merchanidising blitz comes down to companies wanting to partner with them and stores wanting the product. If you think Walmart and Target were going to devote a bunch of ever diminishing space in their toy aisle to this sight unseen, well it just wasn't happening.

Kpop is more mainstream but even the breakout hits in the US like Rose's recent work are almost entirely in English (I'm actually not sure if there are any exceptions to that, I don't know enough about the big BTS hits), and of course a ton of marketing. People who are not fans may underestimate it as something we don't understand, like, say, country music or something, but it's still not so big that it was a no brainer that this would be some breakout hit that demanded merchandising, especially from merchandising partners who would have probably lowballed it if anything as an unproven franchise. Anime is similarly a huge cultural phenomenon but we are still a bit away from even the biggest anime movie having sustained box office success as well.

And if I'm being super honest, I like this movie a lot but it's not particularly, let's say, deep or even that unique. We're a long ways away from the original plot discussion but there are kind of major problems with the overall plot. It's a great, fun movie but outside of the songs I'm not sure as an animation fan there was enough there for me to be like "oh yeah, this is a no brainer."

To be fair, the movie was going to be longer but the budget
only allowed for a certain length so some of it had to get cut...

Speaking of which, Arden Cho and May Hong was on GMA today talking about
what they wanted to see in a sequel. Ji-young Yoo was in Korea and couldn't make it...

Golden this week is #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the third time

35.3 million official streams (up 4% week-over-week)
19.7 million radio airplay audience impressions (up 21%) (#29)
9,000 sold (up 11%) in the United States Aug. 22-28.
Sixth week at No. 1 on the Streaming Songs chart and first week at No. 1 on Digital Song Sales.

The rest of the Top 10: Your Idol (#4), Soda Pop (#5), and How It’s Done (now #9)

I mean otherwise it's borderline criminal to cast Lea Salonga in what amounts to a musical and have her sing only one line.