KPop Demon Hunters directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans are reflecting on their long journey to the Oscars.
The film, which was released in June on Netflix, has become the streamer’s most-watched title. The sleeper hit spawned toy lines and food tie-ins, along with a theatrical run for its sing-along companion. “It’s beyond anything I could have ever imagined this concept becoming,” Kang tells The Hollywood Reporter.
The film has catapulted the team into the spotlight, led by the film’s lead singing voice and songwriter for multiple songs, EJAE. But Kang and Appelhans are quick to emphasize that the film is only possible because of the large team behind it. “Animation is such a collaborative process,” Kang says.
KPop Demon Hunters is up for best animated feature and best original song at the 2026 Academy Awards. It’s undoubtedly a big moment for Kang and Appelhans, but the directors are keen to share this moment with their team that brought the film to life over its seven-year incubation period. “We honestly haven’t had much time to be with them post-release and just hold hands, jump up and down and celebrate,” Appelhans says, adding they’ve finally been able to have those moments during the awards campaign.
“Every time I think about the crew, I just burst into tears,” Kang admits. “I’m so grateful to everybody. You make sacrifices in your life working on these things, no matter what your role is and how long you’re on it.”
The Oscars are shaping up to be the biggest moment for the directors to celebrate with their crew. “We got extra tickets, so we’re only inviting our crew to it; just as a reward and also so that we could all be there to celebrate, no matter what happens,” Kang explains. “They all deserve to be there.”
Given KPop Demon Hunters’ success, it wouldn’t be surprising if Kang and Appelhans found themselves unable to be surprised at anything surrounding the movie at this point. The pair deny that, however. Appelhans noted in recent Q&As, like their American Cinematheque program moderated by director Guillermo del Toro, there are still moments of shock. “I am always wonderfully surprised when filmmakers that we really admire [appreciate the film],” he says.
“The sort of clarity that they see — through all the bedazzling in the movie — to the hard stuff. [They] have such interesting questions about it and notice the things that took the most work behind the scenes to pull off,” Appelhans continues. “Artist to artist, you feel sort of appreciated.”
For Kang, meeting with artists who know how much the movie means remains rewarding. “We recently met Daniel Dae Kim in person,” she says, adding that he’s “so lovely” and how she can’t believe they hadn’t met.
She adds, “[He] just knows how much this means for our industry and for Korean creators because he’s somebody who really stands up for that.”
KPop Demon Hunters’ success has been immense, due in part to the gradual growth it initially experienced on the streaming platform. There’s been plenty of conversation around whether or not a theatrical release would’ve changed that. “As an industry, as filmmakers, you want the theaters to still be there,” she begins, noting the film was greenlit during the COVID days. “To get a green light in a time of super uncertainty. To be able to make an original IP in this climate, where we are just typically getting sequels and regurgitated ’80s films, I just saw it as an opportunity to get a movie made. That’s all you really can ask for, especially as a first-time filmmaker.”
Kang says that given the budget they got to make the film, it was a great opportunity. “The whole theater climate is strange. We just don’t know how people are consuming content these days. We’re still trying to figure it out,” she says.
“Our film rolled out on a streaming platform, got this love from the fans and then ended up three weeks later in a movie theater. The fact that that’s possible for something is really interesting,” Kang continues. “It just tells us that every film is different. How it’s consumed is different. How it’s enjoyed is different. Hopefully we see more, I guess, bespoke releases [or] approaches to each film.”
KPop Demon Hunters, as a title, is at once a straightforward example of what the film is, but doesn’t allow for audiences to know it’s so much more than that. “Streaming is great in our case,” says Appelhans. “It’s very hard to explain that to an audience in a marketing piece. The most convincing version of that is word of mouth, firsthand experience and people speaking up for the film.”
He continues, “That snowball effect is entirely so much more easy to do in streaming, I think. I wonder if there’s [a] certain type of movie that will always benefit from having that opportunity to create buy-in and build momentum versus trying to persuade everybody cold that they should show up to the theater on the first Saturday or whatever.”
With a sequel eventually on the way — reports of the film’s release date were initially stated for 2029; however, the Sony Pictures Animation bosses recently alluded to it likely being longer. Animation, famously, is a long process. The directors are understandably coy about what they can share; the pair have essentially been promoting the film nonstop since it blew up in July 2025.
“I’ve seen a lot of comments on YouTube interviews that have been voted right to the top that say something along the lines of, ‘If there’s going to be a sequel, let them cook. Don’t rush it. We can all wait,’” Appelhans says. “The audiences are so media savvy now. They don’t know the animation pipeline per se, but they have sort of spoken in the sense of if we make it great, they’ll be there.”
Kang relates it to another SPA title that experienced a years-long wait time in between films. “The diehard Spider-Verse fans really know that. They understand that level of artistry takes a really long time,” she says. “Anytime you’re trying to do something new and different, it takes even longer. I think whatever we do next is going to be just pushing ourselves even more than what we did with this movie.”
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