Intro for August 25, 2025

Dear Gossips,   

I sealed the Honmoon this weekend, along with thousands of other people in sold-out theatres across North America at the Kpop Demon Hunters singalong screenings. I knew I would have a good time, but I did not expect to laugh as hysterically as I did – out of pure joy. Duana and I, every few minutes or so, would react to something at the same time, look at each other, and lose it. It wasn’t the people who dressed up as characters from the movie. And it wasn’t the singing, really. We knew the audience would be cosplaying and singing, and we were singing too. 

It was the commentary. Our theatre was a mix of adults of all ages with other adults of all ages, and adults with kids, and teenagers. And the live commenting at key points in the movie, or people just saying certain lines of dialogue along with the characters – like when “Baby” from Saja Boys delivers his iconic line…

@kyotoha_osa

iconic Goo Goo ga ga #sajaboys #huntrix #demonhunters #fyp #Le_igh? #yuzuleigh #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp #kpopdemonhunters #babysaja

♬ Goo Goo Ga Ga - ᴋʏᴏ̄_ᴏsᴀ

… probably three quarters of the audience shouted it out at full volume. What really sent Duana and me was the Saja Boys thirst. The way people erupted like they would an actual boy band. And when Jinu makes his sacrifice, we heard people screaming out, “You’re a king, Jinu!” “Rest in peace, Jinu!” 

And also, at one point during a scene with Jinu and Mira, someone behind us yelled, “Release the aquarium date!” Excuse me? Is there an aquarium scene? Like, I’m a pretty online person, and my algorithm has been coded to Kpop Demon Hunters for weeks. But there is some deep fan lore out there that I still haven’t accessed yet. 

In Toronto, that kind of engagement was timely. Because it was also Fan Expo in the city this weekend, bringing all kinds of nerds to the downtown core to let their nerd flags fly alongside others in the community. Those of us who just happen to be Huntr/x and Saja Boys nerds had our own dedicated space to belt out the songs at the top of our lungs and watch, for the hundredth time, a movie that gave us such a surprise jolt of happiness this summer. 

And that movie just topped the box office after only two days of screenings in 1,750 or so theatres – but not AMC theatres – bringing in somewhere between $18-20 million. This is f-cking extraordinary, there’s no other way to say it. Kpop Demon Hunters has been streaming for two months, the newness wasn’t there. It’s not the newness that got people out of their homes and into the theatres. It’s the experience, it’s the music, and the desire to love on a movie with hundreds of strangers. That’s the power of the theatre, ironically illuminated by a movie that streams on a platform that doesn’t believe in theatrical release. 

Netflix, of course, has its own ulterior motives. All this devotion to their title only sets up the possibility of the sequel. Kpop Demon Hunters is still being viewed at a constant rate, there’s been virtually no drop in its streaming numbers, and it will, in no time, become the most watched original film of all time in Netflix history. Which would mean that Netflix’s two top titles, in film and series television, will be Korean stories. Like Squid Game, Kpop Demon Hunters had pretty much zero marketing leading up to its release. I feel like there was more promotion for the singalong screening than there was initially before the movie dropped in June. Here are Arden Cho and May Hong, who voice Rumi and Mira respectively, and Rei Ami who is musical Zoey, lighting the Empire State Building on Friday. 

What’s next? If reps from Kpop Demon Hunters aren’t invited to all the award season campaign stops in the fall… we ride at dawn. 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey