North American theatres will have another shot at playing Netflix’s KPOP: DEMON HUNTER. The musical sing-along will play in participating theaters on Halloween weekend, from October 31 to November 2nd. This time, all major circuits have signed on to play the movie, including AMC, which sat out the first theatrical screenings from August 23-24. That two-day event generated a reported gross of $19 million, topping the weekend box office charts.
AMC’s decision not to screen KPOP: DEMON HUNTERS back in August was tantamount to a principled stand against Netflix and their stance on skipping theatres with almost all of their movies. AMC and Netflix butted heads previously when the streamer would not allow their Martin Scorsese-directed crime drama THE IRISHMAN to play in theatres for a traditional, exclusive run.
In an article at the time, Deadline reported that AMC, Regal, Cinemark, and Cineplex all decided to boycott the film in their theatres, saying that “the four-week progression to SVOD remains unacceptable to those chains.” As a result, only a few hundred independent theatres agreed to play the Netflix film on their screens for a limited run.
How quaint! The state of theatrical exhibition has certainly changed since then, with most exhibitors eager to fill their screens with crowd-pleasing titles, wherever they may come from. In August, the exhibitors that screened K-pop benefitted handsomely, attracting new and substantial audiences to their theatres.
Similar to the weekend of its first release, the schedule for 10/31 – 11/2 does not offer any major new releases, with the most interesting being Yorgos Lanthimos’ R-rated BUGONIA. Increasingly, a weekend without a significant new studio release is being backfilled with event titles such as KPOP and Taylor Swift’s THE OFFICIAL RELEASE PARTY OF A SHOWGIRL.
