In April, Ted Sarandos dismissed the theatrical experience as “an outmoded idea for most people.” Has he reversed course? Not at all. But with Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters, set to become the streamer’s biggest feature of all time, Sarandos has thrown a lifeline to theater owners during the summer’s dog days.
This weekend, the musical sensation will head to cinemas for a “sing-along experience.” In some areas, tickets have already sold out. “People are going to come out for these screenings,” Ankler Media deputy editor Christopher Rosen says. With nothing on the immediate horizon that speaks to the KPop Demon Hunters audiences of young people and families, Chris suggests the sing-along gambit could become Netflix’s next business success. “Is there a world for Netflix to get into theatrical, where the company launches its movies first on streaming and then goes to theaters?”
Regardless of the future, KPop Demon Hunters in theaters is a much-needed boost for the summer box office in the present. What started as a strong season now retains only a two percent lead over last summer, with just two weekends to go. “It’s a little crazy,” says Sean McNulty of the collapsed delta between ’24 and ’25. “The prediction wasn’t that we were going to be flat over 2024 — that was for sure not the outlook.”
Elsewhere in today’s Monday Morning QBs, with Chris filling in for Richard Rushfield: Weapons notched a strong $25 million in its second week and is poised to hold the top spot through Labor Day weekend; Nobody 2 opened tepidly, despite the first film’s success on PVOD; and with The Fantastic Four continuing to do merely fine, will Marvel need to reconsider its budgets?
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