KPop Demon Hunters could top the box office chart this weekend even though it’s a Netflix original. The smash hit animated musical follows the KPop girl group Huntr/x, who moonlight as demon hunters. It is currently Netflix’s second most-watched movie of all time and could very well surpᴀss 2021’s Red Notice to become No. 1 before long.

KPop Demon Hunters is coming to theaters for a two-day sing-along presentation starting August 23. It debuts during a weekend where it was expected that Zach Cregger’s Weapons (which has grossed more than $150 million worldwide and is the third highest-grossing horror movie of the year) would take No. 1 at the domestic box office for the third consecutive weekend.

Per ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, KPop Demon Hunters is now projected to take in a whopping $15 million during its two days at the domestic box office, from more than 1,000 sold-out screenings across the country. Weapons‘ 3-day projections of roughly $13.5 million see it trailing behind the viral mega-hit.

What This Means For KPop Demon Hunters

Generally, Netflix eschews theatrical presentations for their streaming movies, except in certain cases. These include giving international releases to some of their non-English тιтles, as well as allowing some of their films with awards potential to have Oscars-qualifying limited runs in domestic theaters, including Roma, The Irishman, and The Power of the Dog.

However, they have proven their potential to connect with domestic ticket buyers in the past, when they put out their whodunit sequel Glᴀss Onion: A Knives Out Mystery in theaters for five days during Thanksgiving week in 2022. Although it played on just 696 screens, it earned $15 million during that time.

2025’s KPop Demon Hunters seems poised to match that record even though it has considerably fewer days in which it will be running in theaters. This would not make it Netflix’s highest-grossing theatrical outing (that would be 2019’s A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon, which grossed more than $43 million internationally), but it is still a remarkable achievement.

Our Take On The KPop Demon Hunters Projections

It is not entirely unexpected that a special version of the Netflix movie would be a hit in theaters. In addition to its success on Netflix, multiple songs from the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack have charted on the Billboard H๏τ 100, with the record-smashing single “Golden” even hitting No. 1.

It remains to be seen if KPop Demon Hunters will be an anomaly like Glᴀss Onion or if it will encourage Netflix to bring more streaming тιтles to theaters. However, they will be giving Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Chronicles of Narnia movie a theatrical run, so there are signs that their approach to combining theatrical and streaming plays is slowly changing.

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