‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Directors Discuss the Film’s Rise and Chart-Topping Soundtrack

Ever since its release on Netflix last month, the original animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” has burned up the internet — and the charts. The musical fantasy has topped the streamer’s global rankings and inspired countless memes, dance challenges (some even by K-pop stars), themed merchandise and fan art. The film’s equally blockbuster soundtrack has stormed the music charts, with eight of its songs landing in the Billboard Hot 100.

“KPop Demon Hunters” follows the members of a fictional K-pop girl group as they juggle demanding careers and fight to save the world from soul-stealing demons. The film’s directors, Maggie Kang (a veteran storyboard artist on films like “Rise of the Guardians” and “Puss in Boots” ) and Chris Appelhans (who directed “Wish Dragon”), spoke about the making of their movie and its unexpected rise as a global cultural phenomenon.

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Maggie, the story behind “KPop Demon Hunters” was your idea. What convinced you that a film that combines disparate elements like K-pop, animation, traditional Korean art and mythology, and demons could resonate with so many different audiences?

MAGGIE KANG Well, nothing did. [Laughs] I was basically just trying to make something that I wanted to see: a movie that celebrated Korean culture. And for some reason, I landed on demonology. I thought the jeoseung saja [grim reapers in Korean mythology] — which is what the boys are at the end of the movie with the black hats and the black robes — was such an iconic image from my childhood that I was very scared of, so I knew that I wanted to feature that. And the thought of demons naturally led to demon hunters. I wanted to see female superheroes that were a lot more relatable, who like to eat and make silly faces. We weren’t trying to make them just pretty, sexy and cool. They had very real insecurities and showed that.

How did you two end up working together on this project?

CHRIS APPELHANS Aron Warner, the producer who did [“Wish Dragon”], was helping Maggie develop this. He said, “You should meet Maggie. She’s really smart, and this idea is really cool.” He was right. [Laughs]

Maggie told me about it, and about 10 minutes in, I was trying to play it cool on the outside, but on the inside, I was like, “Oh my God! Please let me work on this movie with you.” When you’re trying to make movies, you’re looking for something that is moving and that you haven’t seen before, and they just don’t come along very often. This was one of those things.

We essentially never disagreed. We had different strengths, but also, I think the sum of our brainpower made for a nice mix.

When I first heard the title, “KPop Demon Hunters,” and read the premise, I was a bit skeptical. How did you pitch your story idea to Sony Pictures Animation?

KANG K-content is very popular, and it was kind of at the height of BTS that this was pitched, so I don’t think it was a hard sell in that regard. If you were not living under a rock, you knew how big BTS and K-content were.

It was almost seven years to the day, from pitching it to the release. I had known Aron for a long time as well. [When] he landed at Sony with “Wish Dragon,” he called me and said, “Do you have anything that you want to pitch me?” I pitched it like, “It’s a K-pop girl group, and they hunt demons secretly.” And he’s like, “I love it!” I thought he was joking. But the next week, he had a deal ready.

A few months into development, Kristine Belson, our president at Sony [Pictures Animation], was like, “I think this has big movie potential.” So we started to look at a directing partner, and that’s when Chris came on.

Ejae, who does the vocals for [Rumi, a demon hunter], was on super early and wrote a couple of demos for the first song, “How It’s Done,” and a version of the duet [“Free”]. We played those two as proof of concept for music.

It sounds like you didn’t get much pushback.

KANG Every day I was like, “Wow, they’re really going to pull the plug on this.” But they didn’t.

APPELHANS I think even in those green-light pitches, we were like, “This movie’s going to start with these ladies in the past in Korea. Get over it. It’s going to be cool.”

But we were also saying that this is a movie about a very universal story, about shame and the power of music to connect people. And those transcend any national identity.

Did you have a particular audience in mind? There are many people who are not K-pop fans who are also enjoying this movie.

KANG My entire career, I’ve worked at really big studios where we’re always making four-quadrant movies, so that’s always in the back of my mind. But I’ve always wondered why we didn’t target a very specific group. When I was a teenager and loved K-pop, I spent all my money on that. I went to an all-girls school, and when “Titanic” came out, I had friends who watched it in the theaters like seven, eight times. I was like, why isn’t anybody tapping into this obsessive, teenage girl love? So I was trying to make a movie for my current self, of course, but also for my teenage self. Recently somebody said, “It seems like you made a movie for teenage girls, but maybe there’s a teenage girl in everybody.”

Romance, friendship and the idea of shame and hiding yourself — I think there’s a lot of themes and ideas that are speaking to a global audience because they’re something that everybody relates to. I think that is also the reason I wanted to make the movie as Korean as possible, because I wanted to prove it doesn’t matter what culture something is set in — it’s all about the characters and the story.

What was the moment when you knew that you were onto something big?

APPELHANS I remember watching TikToks a couple days [after the release]. The level of passion put into the TikTok montage and the discourse in the comments — Maggie and I were joking over a text, like, were these guys in the writing room with us? Because the way they would react to a joke, we were like, this is what we talked about for five years. On every level, I felt like things that we hoped were resonating, were clearly resonating.

All the film’s references to Korean art, mythology, food and pop culture — it seemed every scene in the movie had some Korean elements in it.

KANG I’ve lived in North America most of my life, but I’ve always felt culturally first and foremost Korean. My sense of humor is a mix of ’90s Korean soaps, variety shows and K-dramas, but then also “The Simpsons” and Looney Tunes and all these Western influences from sitcoms. And Chris — he’s watched a lot of Korean content. So we both have a hodgepodge of these influences that we love.

We had a very big Korean talent pool in this crew. Imageworks, who handled the digital part of the movie, made sure there were Korean voices in every department. We had a whole Korean committee watching out for authenticity.

APPELHANS Having so much Korean talent or people influenced by Korean media on the crew made it possible. Because we could say to one of our animators, “Do you remember that one expression the girl makes in the K-drama ‘Weightlifting Fairy’? Can you find us 50 GIFs of other moments like that from other K-dramas?” And the next day, he’d be like, “Here’s the full range of eye twitches and mouth shapes.”

And that just goes to show you need diversity at the top and everywhere else. That makes something super special possible.

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