A singalong version of the Netflix animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” is on-track to earn $18 million to $20 million in theaters this weekend, making it the number one movie at the domestic box office. And that’s despite only being in theaters for two-thirds of the weekend (namely, Saturday and Sunday).
This isn’t the first time a streaming title has topped the box office charts. In fact, Apple’s “F1” (distributed in U.S. theaters by Warner Bros.) opened to an even more impressive $57 million earlier this summer. But this marks the first time Netflix has had the biggest movie in theaters.
The victory comes with some asterisks, most notably that Netflix doesn’t announce box office returns itself. So these aren’t official numbers from the streamer, but rather preliminary weekend estimates from other industry sources.
This was, admittedly, a quiet weekend, without major new releases. Besides “KPop Demon Hunters,” the top-grossing movie was “Weapons,” which made an estimated $15.4 million in its third weekend in theaters, for a $115 million domestic total.
Still, this feels like a milestone for a company that has avoided traditional theatrical releases (a stance that may have driven away some of its most successful filmmakers). The closest it’s come is a one-week release of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” sequel “Glass Onion,” which earned an estimated $15 million in theaters. And then there’s Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia” adaptation, which will probably do even bigger box office numbers when it launches exclusively on Imax screens next fall.
This is also an impressive victory for a movie that’s been available on streaming since late June, and has already climbed to the number two spot on Netflix’s chart of all-time most-watched movies, with more than 210 million views. (It’s sandwiched, somehow, between “Red Notice” and “Carry-On”).
Produced by Sony Pictures Animation and with a largely Korean/Korean American voice cast, “KPop Demon Hunters” tells the story of a K-Pop girl group that, yes, also hunts demons, including a rival boy band. “Golden,” a song from the film’s soundtrack, topped the Billboard charts and has been streamed more than 400 million times on Spotify.
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In keeping with a longstanding refusal to screen movies without an exclusive theatrical window, AMC Theatres declined to show this singalong version of “KPop Demon Hunters,” but it was the only major chain to do so.
