Overview

• A sold-out singalong screening at the Busan International Film Festival marked the film’s first event of its kind in South Korea, with fans singing to “Golden” and other tracks.
• Creator Maggie Kang told Netflix Creative Asia attendees that the story fuses Korean demonology and K-pop, drawing on mudang traditions where music wards off evil.
• Kang described a 2022 research trip across Korea and the enlistment of Korean choreographers and K-pop producers, including Jo Nain, Lee Jung, The Black Label team, Ian Eisendrath, Lindgren, Jenna Andrews and Stephen Kirk.
• The film is Netflix’s most-watched movie with more than 236 million views as of Aug. 26, as its global fandom fuels museum tie-ins, Seoul drone light shows through Oct. 18 and an Empire State Building lighting synced to “Golden.”
• Commercial momentum includes a North American singalong theatrical weekend gross of about $18 million and a soundtrack breakout, with “Golden” topping U.S. Billboard and U.K. charts, while a training-program short is in the works.