#318. 'KPop Demon Hunters' (Netflix)
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This episode centers on Netflix's runaway hit KPop Demon Hunters, and the trio lands in three different places on it: Sonny raves that it's the best original animated kids' movie since Frozen or Encanto, driven by genuinely catchy songs, and admits he's "annoyed by how much" he enjoyed it despite going in as a cynic about "girl shit"; JVL is the outlier, admiring the movie's anime-inflected art style and cultural specificity (a Buffy the Vampire Slayer-meets-Jem and the Holograms premise) but complaining that the deliberately jaggy animation and the sheer number of mediocre songs left him checking the clock, even as he concedes he's wildly outvoted by the marketplace; Mike loved it too, though he felt like he was missing a layer of Korean mythology (the tiger sidekick, the six-eyed bird, the fire-based villain) that would have deepened it further, and crowns "Golden" the best song over "Soda Pop" and a friend's pick of "What It Sounds Like." Along the way they dig into why Netflix, a company that actively wants theatrical exhibition to die, nonetheless put the film into weekend-only, AMC-less theaters to the tune of an estimated $18-20 million, using the run to manufacture the kind of organic, cross-generational word-of-mouth hit (it surpassed Red Notice's viewership record in half the time) that builds nostalgia ahead of an eventual sequel. Before any of that, the show opens with its usual long banter stretch: Sonny extols the virtues of AppleCare after getting both AirPods replaced for free, and JVL vents about six new back-to-school Apple purchases and a maddening Genius Bar software problem, but the real centerpiece bit is JVL's marauding black bear that has destroyed his trash cans, prompting an increasingly unhinged riff from Sonny and Mike about bear-proof canisters, feeding the bear apples and fish as protection money, and importing a rival mob bear to whack him — while Mike recounts a surprisingly smooth weekend babysitting swap that doubled his household's kid count.
From the show notes
Biggest movie in Netflix history!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00It's time the world will know you as pop stars, but you will be much more than that. You will be hunters. Hey, this is the man's bath house. Get out of here. They're stealing the souls of our fans. Let's send those disgusting demons back to the depths where they belong.
Mike00:00:52Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts, who are just finishing up their ramen, JVL, Jonathan V. Last, and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, if they want to listen to the show, they've got to do it at Sub-Beacon.com. Join the conversation. If you're a patron, get new episodes every Friday morning.
JVL00:01:17Couch! Couch! Couch! Couch!
Mike00:01:21Yeah. What?
JVL00:01:23I have no idea what you're talking about. Did you guys not watch the movie this week?
Sonny00:01:28Oh, yeah. The girls. The girls. Sorry.
JVL00:01:33I'm sorry. It's like the most recurring joke throughout this thing, and you guys just blink. What are you talking about? Sorry. We'll get to this. I'm into the songs. Yeah, I was going to say, we'll get to this with the songs. It is both the intro and the outro to the movie, but that's okay. Couch! Couch! Couch!
Mike00:01:49I was more into the couch after they sunk into it. Anyway, join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about... Yes, K-pop demon hunters later on in the show. Not now, JVL. But first, let's see what's going on in our world. Sonny Bunch, what's happening with you?
Sonny00:02:10So, a couple weeks ago, we were talking AppleCare. We were talking about AppleCare. And there was some debate as to whether or not you should get AppleCare for certain products. And I know JVL has a whole cycle of purchasing Apple products. And he's got a whole theory on it. But I said I always get the AppleCare for AirPods. I've now had two sets of AirPods. And this is the second one I've gotten. And I think the AppleCare is like $15 or something like that. It's basically 10% of the cost of the thing. Which I think is about standard for AppleCare for the most part. So, it's about... Again, $15 or whatever. And the other day I was at the gym. And my left AirPod was like very quiet. It hadn't stopped working. It hadn't stopped working. But it was very... The volume was very low. I had to like turn it all the way up. So, I could hear just out of the right ear at the gym while I was working out. So, I was like, well, this suggests to me that the AirPod is broken in some way. And I'm going to take it to... Because I still have... I still have... The AppleCare coverage on this set of AirPods runs through like September 4th. So, it was like about... It was going to be up in like two weeks. So, I was like, I'm going to go to the Apple store. I'm going to show them the thing and see what they can do. See if they... Maybe it just needs to be cleaned. Or maybe they can actually fix it. So, I take it in. I take it in. I'm sitting at the Genius bar waiting for my genius to come. My genius comes over. And he's got his iPad. And he plugs it in. He runs the test. And he's like, well, it looks like it's all checking out on this end. I'm going to take it in the back. And we're going to run some speaker tests on it. We'll see what that says. And maybe we can do something for you. So, I don't have high hopes at this point.
Mike00:04:15The back is where things go to die.
Sonny00:04:17The back is never... It's never a good sign. I like to see them do the things in front of me. Who knows what's going on back there? Who knows what sort of shenanigans are happening?
JVL00:04:25Rub it on their junk.
Sonny00:04:27Who knows? Who knows what's going on? So, I...
JVL00:04:30Man, this goober thinks we're going to fix it here. Shove it down your pants. Rub it around.
Sonny00:04:35Exactly. I don't want that. I don't care for... I don't like shenanigans.
JVL00:04:39Here's your iPod Pro, sir. Go ahead and stick it in your ear.
Sonny00:04:41These go in my ears, I will have you know. These are not over the ears. These are in the ears.
JVL00:04:4915, 25-year-olds in black t-shirts are in the back watching on the CCTV cameras while you put that thing in your ear. And they'll go, wah!
Sonny00:04:57Cheering. He did it. He did it. So, anyway, the guy comes back and he's like, well, yeah, the left one, the speaker is bad on it, so we're going to replace that for you. We're just going to... We'll replace that for you. But also, the right one has degraded as well, so we're going to replace that one, too. Two new AirPods.
JVL00:05:16That's great. You're the big winner.
Sonny00:05:17Two new AirPods in my ears as we speak. And again, like, I understand if you're trading in your... You're trading in your computer every year or two for a new one. I agree that the Apple Care is probably not... Doesn't make a ton of sense for you. But for stuff like this... And again, I only wear them when I work out, so sweat gets in there and it messes up the thing. I cannot recommend it enough. This is the second time I've done this. I've taken it in and gotten either one or now both of them replaced. I think it's totally worth it. This is not... This is not SpawnCon for Apple or Apple Care or anything, for the record. I'm doing a little bit of consumer advice here. If you buy the AirPods, get the Apple Care coverage. It's like 15 bucks. You're not going to regret it.
JVL00:06:08I just bought six Apple devices this week.
Sonny00:06:11Wow. Six Apple devices.
JVL00:06:13Six Apple devices this week. Back to school week. Back to school week. And I was confronted with Apple Care for all of them, and I said no to all of them. And it was just so much more money. I don't think it's 10%. Maybe I'm wrong. But anyway, it just seemed like a lot of money. And I was like, with six devices, that 10%, I mean, you're a whole other half a device.
Sonny00:06:41Totally. Absolutely. I mean, again, I always get it because I keep my laptops until they're broken and in the ground.
JVL00:06:51On the other hand, both G-Money and Flash. Have each in the last three weeks broken the screens on their iPads. And I'm going to have to replace those things. So maybe I should have. I don't know.
Mike00:07:03Did they break them the same way? I mean, if the answer is dropping them, then yes.
JVL00:07:10Okay. Yeah.
Sonny00:07:12Yeah. I mean, I just like, I get, I'm a, and I like to be able to go, I like to be able to go directly to the Apple store. Because you can get, you know, if you get like an iPhone or something from the Verizon store, they have their own coverage. That's like, get the Verizon insurance. I think it's like slightly cheaper than Apple care, but they send you to some, like, they send you to some strip mall, third party phone fixing service. And I'm always like, I don't know. I don't know about that. I don't know.
JVL00:07:40I have a genius part question here. I don't know if this is going to derail us. Maybe we should just talk about this offline and people will notice. But as I am trying to manage the family, Apple family and all my devices. Right. Through iCloud. It is. I mean, I think I'm a reasonably. Tech literate person. And, you know, like with one of the profiles, there is something wrong with the profile and I cannot figure it out. And I just thought, OK, I'll just make a genius bar appointment. And the genius part is not going to allow me to make an appointment. It because the device is not like within Apple care or whatever. And it's the problem isn't like a hardware problem. The problem is like something is wrong with this. And I've tried every stupid. Apple customer support forum. And so should I just show up to the Apple store and be like, help me fix. I am sure that there is a someplace there is a screen time account setting, which I am just missing to toggle the right way. But I can't for the life of me figure this out. And what they won't let me make it. It's too complicated to explain. But the point is, it is a software issue, not a hardware issue. And you used to be able to make appointments at the genius bar for those sorts of things.
Mike00:08:55And they are. They are really trying to discourage genius bar usage.
Sonny00:08:58Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:08:59And appointment making. And so I think maybe I ought to just try like the cold call walk up.
Sonny00:09:04Just show up. Just show up. Be like, hey, my I can't log on to this account.
JVL00:09:08Yeah.
Sonny00:09:09Make it make it.
JVL00:09:10Should I try that?
Sonny00:09:11I should do that. You should. You should tell them. Well, you should. You should lie to them. You should lie to them and be like, I'm pretty sure it's on Apple here, but I can't log in my thing to prove it.
JVL00:09:21All right.
Sonny00:09:22That works. That'll work.
JVL00:09:25JVL. What's going on with you? So much is happening in my life right now. But. The real thing is the bear. I. What's going on? Yeah. Let's go. I'm home and I have seen what he did to my trash can. And what he did was he destroyed it. So I do not have cheap trash cans. I have the most robust rubber. They're not even rubber made. There's something like, you know, the thing above rubber. But these things, they're 90. Melons. And like, I can jump on top of them. The plastic is their plastic. But they are. That plastic is thick as anything. And what the bear did was.
Mike00:10:08Thick with two C's.
JVL00:10:09Yeah. He permanently deformed the plastic in the lid in order to like, like pushing it all down so that all of those, the plastic edges, which fold, he unfolded them. Yeah. Yeah. So like he. Unmolded the plastic. And by doing that, he was then that toggled the latch that the carabiner had been holding closed off. So that is how he broke into it. And the the trash can no longer closes. So and there's nothing to be done about it. This is, you know, once you deform molded plastic, it don't ever go back. Right.
Sonny00:10:46Right.
JVL00:10:46So I need another trash can. And I've been doing a bunch of research on this through bear forums. And it turns out. Careful. There are there are different kinds of bear forums.
Sonny00:10:59You just Google bear forum.
JVL00:11:01I guess. And you want to you want to stick to the ones like bears and trash resistant container.
Sonny00:11:10I don't know, man. You get into weird. I'm sure there are other things that you get. We bear trash play. Sure. Anyway.
Mike00:11:17Hold on. You guys. I mean, because the only other option besides the animal would be the critically acclaimed TV show. Right.
JVL00:11:24The bear. So among the things I have discovered is that there is no way to really make your trash can proof to bears. The people seem to say, no, you should just put it in your put it in your garage. I'm like, look, I did an amazing job cleaning out my garage, but I cannot put two 90 gallon trash cans also in my garage easily. I mean, maybe I could do it, but that's that's that's going to be a heavy load. I then looked. There are some specialty bear resistant. Trash cans made by the same and they then go to these things are three hundred sixty six dollars each for trash can. But the problem is, as the people on the bear forum say, you should contact your trash pickup service to see whether or not they will accept these things, because these are also quite human proof. Right. And most trash services will tell you, no, we're not going to pick that up. And so if you have one of these canisters, what you. Have to do is then on the morning of trash day, you have to take all of your trash out of the bear proof canister and put it into a normal canister and then take that out to the trash and hope that in those intervening hours, the bear doesn't also just get into it anyway.
Mike00:12:39JVL, JVL, I think I think you're looking at this all wrong. You need to take care of the bear, not the trash.
JVL00:12:49So I thought of that yesterday when he came around and what I did was I took one of our. Beautiful honey crisp apples, which we just procured from the Acme and I tossed the apple out to him.
Sonny00:13:03No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. God, what?
JVL00:13:06I just thought.
Sonny00:13:07So listen, what on earth are you? The problem is that he's dip it in honey. First, did you wrap it in meat?
JVL00:13:14Maybe what we should do is just feed the bear for real and keep him out of the trash. Maybe that's the answer. I watched. A lot of those Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Mike.
Sonny00:13:29What if you put out a picnic basket next?
JVL00:13:32I want to tell you this while we were in while we were in North Carolina, we got a delivery from the sponsors of one of my other podcasts, and it is some of the highest grade fish known to man. Amazing stuff. I love this stuff, and it comes like vacuum sealed, packed in dry ice, but they clearly left it like the week after we left. And because, you know, I put a stop on my mail, but that doesn't do like FedEx.
Mike00:14:00Sure.
JVL00:14:00And so we have this box of like $400 worth of really good Alaskan cod stuff sitting. And I have not yet thrown it into the trash. But what I should probably do is just use those as my way to feed the bear for the next month or so. I just like every couple of days throw one of those slabs of fish out for him. Yeah.
Mike00:14:21JBL. We're talking guns. We're talking, we're talking kill this fucking bear. Like this bear. How did I do that? He's so cute. Because he will not be cute for much longer. He will be very scary very soon. Oh, he's a little black bear.
Sonny00:14:41He's a black bear?
Mike00:14:42Yeah. This is a little black bear.
Sonny00:14:45The problem is you have to kill one of them to make an example to them.
JVL00:14:50I mount his head on a pike in the driveway. My kids will love that.
Sonny00:14:54You have to skin him. You got to skin him and you got to put his head on a pike and you got to let the insects eat away the skin until it's just a bear skull right next to your trash can. And that will remind the other ones.
Mike00:15:06This is what happens.
Sonny00:15:07And then you got to walk around. You got to walk around your driveway wearing the bear skin like. Doing a dance. Oh, this is my territory now.
JVL00:15:16Yeah. So when he came around yesterday, G Money and I were just about to go out into the driveway to play a little tennis. We're going to do a little mini tennis out there. And G Money was outraged that I said we couldn't go out because there was a bear in the driveway. It's like, what? What? Why? Oh, come on. It'll be fine. You know, like, yeah. And I was like, I feel like I feel like mom would be pretty pissed if I took you out to play tennis while the bear was there. Yeah.
Mike00:15:42It was like, why, dad? Come on, man. You never do anything fun. See, but I think you're I think your problems are going to get a lot worse. The bigger and more acclimated this bear gets where like. Like, he's not just coming around every every mini tennis session in a while. Like, he'll be around all the time.
JVL00:16:03And what if we just view him not as a bear, but just as another New Jersey businessman. Who is it just wants a taste asking to just make sure that, you know, nothing happens to those nice trash cans I got there. Right. Like, sure, I could go out and try to hire my own vigilante. To kill him or something. Or you could just do what everybody else does is you just, you know, you take care of him. They take care of you. It's a symbiotic relationship, right? Yeah.
Sonny00:16:35But you're not getting anything out of this.
JVL00:16:39Maybe he won't mess up my next trash can. I don't know. I don't know what to do with this thing.
Sonny00:16:43You can't pay the bear protection. That's not how bears work.
JVL00:16:46That's what the apples and the fish are. The apples and the fish are my protection money that I pay the bear.
Mike00:16:51Your homework, JBL, is to watch every single mob movie. Ever made. Tony the Bear.
Sonny00:16:56If I know, if I understand my mob movies correctly, you need to find either an Irish bear or a Chinese bear. To come and take care of your current bear, your New Jersey bear problem.
JVL00:17:13My Italian bear.
Sonny00:17:15Once you have a triad IRA mafia bear war in your, they'll kill you. They'll kill each other off that everybody will be dead and you'll be fine.
JVL00:17:28And I pick up the pieces all coming together now. That's what's been going on in my life. I don't know what I'm going to do. If you guys have like for real ideas, let me know. Michael, what are you up to, buddy?
Mike00:17:41Oh, not much. We had, um, you know, we, we have three children of our own and, uh, this past weekend, we, um, somehow magically doubled the number of children that we were watching over. Um, and it's, uh, it's a sort of a situation that we have heard about from our neighbors and friends, but had never kind of taken the plunge ourselves until, uh, until they suggested it, uh, which is the babysitting swap. Are you guys familiar with the concept? It's not that, not that, uh, not that complicated.
JVL00:18:20If I Googled this, I'd also have to. Yeah. Don't, don't, don't Google.
Sonny00:18:23Don't do baby. Consider swap with the bear stuff right next to my bear forum. Yeah, exactly.
Mike00:18:29Um, but, uh, what, what it amounted to is, uh, we took for roughly 36 hours, um, three kids, uh, who are our neighbors and friends and friends with our kids, uh, so that the neighbors could enjoy a, uh, an overnight quick getaway for the two of them. And then, uh, probably not, uh, probably not these. Um, and then, and then they will reciprocate for us. Uh, and, um, it was, uh, it was a very interesting experience in, in a lot of ways. And the big way I felt like was I was bracing myself for like, this is going to be kind of a disaster because like our three kids alone, like feels like a disaster, like on the weekends where, you know, it's just, what are you going to do with all of them? And, and, uh, and now we're doubling the number of them and they're. Everybody's excited because the friends are coming over and we're going to do all this crazy stuff. Um, it ended up being a lot less stressful and a lot less, um, a lot less chaotic. And it just, it, it strikes me that there's something about lots of kids, including ones that are not your own. Um, like they end up taking care of each other in a way, um, that somehow when it's just your kids, like they, they like get bored. Or angry with each other. And then they just turn their attention toward you. So I'm wondering if like the, like the goal here for every weekend should just be to have more of other people's kids at my house, uh, for as many weekends as I can in order to, uh, in order to make the weekends, uh, smoother and easier. What do you think?
Sonny00:20:17Do you have, do you have an older, does your oldest get to be in charge or is there an older child? Who gets the sensation of being in charge?
Mike00:20:28No, it's, it's less that. So like in this situation, this past weekend, it's his best friend was over. So like the two of them were doing their thing. Uh, my seven year old was kind of tagging along and then the, uh, the other kids were kind of doing their own thing as well. The biggest problem came because my two year old was getting very territorial about, about the four year old taking his toys, the four year old guest child. Um, but I would say like it, what it ended up being was like, everybody just kind of found their little space or their, their, their sort of counterpart kid. And they were able to, there was like a symbiosis that came out of this. Speaking of symbiosis, um, like it, it, it was kind of magical. And I don't, I don't know if I can reach an equilibrium point. That's it. JBL and equilibrium.
JVL00:21:22Yeah. Uh, I mean, I wouldn't extrapolate too. Far from one 36 hour period myself, uh, but you could experiment with this sort of thing, I guess.
Mike00:21:31I like it. I, yeah, I, I like it. I, it's just, it ever since, I mean, I even noticed this when we first had kids and we have like little kids and we would go kind of spend some time with other, with our, our friends who had, uh, little kids and the exhaustion that I felt from having like a tiny little, you know, young baby, um, would kind of dissipate when the young babies were kind of like with each other and the parents could all just kind of like sit and relax and, and, and I don't know, there's, there's, there's, there's strength in numbers when it comes to kids. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm coming around to this idea. Any thoughts? No, I, I like that idea.
Sonny00:22:17Yeah. I mean, I, I think, uh, I think you should try it. I think you should try it is what you should do. Like just, uh, give it a, I think you should, what you should actually do is just throw them in the Thunderdome.
Mike00:22:31Just throw them all in the Thunderdome, which is basically what our basement play right is. I mean, it's like, there's like toys. There's, we have a whole like climbing wall. Um, I don't know who I've talked about on the show where like, with like things they can climb on and then jump off of. And it's, it's, it's, but again, I think it's the attention on the, on each other and not on us. That is the sort of innovation here, um, where they're not like coming to bother us with stuff.
Sonny00:23:01Yeah. I mean, I, I, I've had this, I've had similar experiences. Uh, I, it is, it always works a little better when you have one who is in charge, who, one who's like old enough to kind of be looked at as in charge that, and you have enough other children because like what happens is your younger children don't think that your older child is in charge. They will not defer to him on as a matter of principle. Uh, but other, the other children will. And if you can cow enough other children into submission with your age, the other, the younger, your younger siblings will sometimes fall into line, but sometimes not. Sometimes there's insurrections.
JVL00:23:43They're all together as a gaggle and not paired off into like dyads. Right.
Sonny00:23:50Yes. Yes. That's very important. Yeah.
Mike00:23:54But here's the thing. I mean, I, I do think, and I don't think this applies to any of us, but in, in other folks who have like, who have siblings who live nearby with kids as well, I, I feel like this is very much a cousin's type of, uh, uh, type of scenario. And I seem to remember as a kid, like being around like a bunch of the cousins, like they're that, that, what you just described, Sonny does that, that kind of dynamic emerges. Um, and so maybe what I'm describing isn't. It's really not that revolutionary. It's just like the way that, that cousins who are close. Cause I, I, I also think the kids have to know each other really well. Like I can't just, I can't just go pick up random kids off the street. Hey, say, Hey, you want to come play with, play with my kids at my house? That's not what the forums told me.
Sonny00:24:41Yeah. Isn't that why you got your white panel van?
Mike00:24:47Perhaps. I feel like I should move on from this topic of conversation. Um, why don't we just move on and talk about box office?
JVL00:24:54Please. I have so many questions about the box office, Sonny.
Mike00:24:58So the, the number one, well, it's so interesting. Let's talk about it. It's the number one, right?
JVL00:25:04It's a phantom number one with no reported box office.
Mike00:25:08Is this a, well, well, JVL or sorry, Sonny, you explain it.
Sonny00:25:14Yeah. So, I mean, uh, Netflix does not release their box office numbers. They like, even when they, they did the knives out showings, I don't think they released actual numbers. So the numbers that we have. Taken from rival studios and you know, the, the theaters report their box office. Like it's there, they, they, they do that. So basically what, what the number that we have for K-pop demon hunters, which is somewhere between 18 and $20 million is a number from rival distributors. That's what they are saying that this movie made. Um, and that is, that's an enormous amount of money because for a couple of reasons, first of all, K-pop demon hunters, not showing. In AMC theaters, which is the biggest circuit in the country. It is not, it's not showing at AMC at all because AMC is in a death struggle with Netflix for obvious reasons. Cause Netflix doesn't want to do theatrical runs for guaranteed amounts of time. AMC obviously, and rightfully sees this as a, as an extinction level sort of thing. Um, uh, so it may, it made all this money despite not being in the largest number of theaters, it made all this money despite only being shown Saturday and Sunday. There were no, there were not Friday showings. I don't think there were not the Thursday night previews, right? This is just Saturday and Sunday. Um, at, uh, at relatively smaller chains, it did it without any advertising other than word of mouth generated via people talking about, you know, K-pop demon hunters going to have a, going to have a, we should go to, we should go to it. Uh, so, you know, it's, it's. Uh, and still like, if you want to think about the actual amount of money here, it's $20 million figure 10 million of that stays with the theater chains. 10 million of that goes to Netflix. $10 million is less than a rounding error to error to Netflix, which generated $39 billion last year. You know, I like $10 million is not a lot of money. Even if you, even if the, even if Netflix committed to doing theatrical on a regular basis and was extremely successful, it was as successful as the biggest theater chain, the biggest movie distributor in the country this year, which is Warner brothers, Warner brothers has generated, I think $1.5 billion at the box office so far this year, you know, you figure they keep 800 million of that. Uh, 800 million of 39 billion is w what's that? 1%. Yeah, yeah. 1% ish. So, I mean, I like, we're, we're, we're talking about, we're talking about minuscule amounts of money for, uh, for Netflix here, which is why they don't care about theatrical, they just don't, they don't care about theatrical. It does, it does not matter to them. It does not enter their, it does not enter their mindset. And like theatrical actually is bad, is actively bad for Netflix because the existence of theaters props up these other movie studios, which drives up the cost of talent, which et cetera, et cetera. So like everything, this is, this is a very unusual thing. For Netflix to do not because they don't, not because they're not a, a theater first company it's because they actively want theaters to go out of business. They want, they want theaters to be extinct.
Mike00:28:36Yes. So what are they doing? What are they doing? Putting this in?
Sonny00:28:40Well, they're doing, so this is, so this is what's interesting. What are they getting out of this? And what they're getting out of this is this is Netflix's first legitimate, um, new IP. For children, I think is fair to say. So Netflix, Netflix has done a lot of things very well. Netflix drives tons and tons. Netflix generates tons of revenue. First of all, they, they've done that very well and they drive tons of hours viewed for stuff other people have produced and made, right? Like, so the, the most watched movie, the most watched movies on Netflix over overall time are like a Super Mario Brothers movie and, and stuff like that. Uh, and well, no red notice. So red notice is, was their biggest original for the, through the first 90 days. Right, right, right, right, right. So like, so red notice is an interesting, is an interesting thing here, right? Red notice was supposed to be the start of a franchise. We got Dwayne, the rock Johnson. We got Ryan Reynolds. We got Gal Gadot, and they're going to make this movie red notice. And we're going to have a whole bunch of red notice movies. There's going to be a whole franchise of red notices. We, we are in the red notice business. We're gonna spend $250 million on this. We're gonna make a bunch of them. And it was in fact, the most watched movie, uh, of all time for Netflix over the first 90 days. And K-pop demon hunters has surpassed that number, uh, whatever it was, 380 million hours viewed or something. It surpassed that number in 60 days.
JVL00:30:12Yes.
Sonny00:30:12It surpassed that number in 60 days. It still has 30 days left in the series.
JVL00:30:15It also seems to have been actually watched by normal, real people. I have yet to meet a person who watched red notice from tip to tail.
Sonny00:30:24Yeah. Yeah. Outside of that, I mean, no, no, I think this is, this is it. And this is so, and this is what the, this is what K-pop demon hunters is. It is, it is an actual kids phenomenon. It's an organic word of mouth hit of the sort that Netflix has not had in a long time. And we can talk about, you know, like, well, what about stranger things? Okay. TV is different. Stranger things, squid games, TV shows are different. Right. It, those are HBO style hits. Yeah, right. Right. Uh.
JVL00:30:54Um, I, I am, this is, and so the reason, well, I want, I want to get to this because
Sonny00:31:01I have, I have, I, I, I actually want to get your thoughts on this JBL cause you have a lot of thoughts on Disney princesses, but I, I like, this is the first, this is the best Disney princess movie since frozen is the argument I will make. But the, um, but, uh, but, but this is a, this is like a genuine word of mouth hit. It's a genuine phenomenon with kids and, uh, they are putting this in theaters cause they want to get it. They want to keep that hype going. They want this to be a thing that, that kids remember and we'll have nostalgia for in three years when they're able to get a sequel out. Cause it's an animated film. It's going to take a while. They got to actually, it's not just writing the songs and everything and like writing the script and like, it takes a long time to animate things. Animation takes a long time.
JVL00:31:44Um, so it's going to, it's going to be a few years on the billboard top 25. I mean, that's how big this thing is. Like it's crossing everything. These are, they're going to sell. All of the Halloween costumes.
Guest00:31:56Oh yeah.
JVL00:31:57Right. I mean, this, this is going to be a massive phenomenon that you and I actually see in the world around us. They're going to be lunch boxes, backpacks, action figures, you know, the full, the full McGill.
Mike00:32:10I'll, I'll see it too. I'll see it too in the real world. Um, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:32:16Anyway, it's, it's, so that's why they put it, that's why they're putting it in theaters because they want, they want to increase this. They want to increase this hype cycle. Basically they, they want it. They want it. They want to keep it going and they understand, you know, Netflix understands that, like that people like to come together and do things. It's why they're building these Netflix experience locations at the Galleria mall here in Dallas and the King of Prussia mall in, in Pennsylvania. Like it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, come together and watch red notice in a theater, in a theater. So people can, so people can do their red notice cosplay at a, at a, at a, what is that?
JVL00:32:50I actually know nothing about the Netflix experience. What is that? Yeah. I've never heard of it either.
Sonny00:32:55Uh, well, so it's basically my understanding. I haven't actually been, I don't know if it's actually, I'm not a hundred percent sure it's open yet, but the, uh, but basically it's like places where you can come and you can, you can buy merch, you can buy Netflix merch, but also like they have little, they have like, you know, kind of built out spaces and they, they'll will host. My understandings are going to host like Bridgerton, you know, dance balls and shit like that.
JVL00:33:19Uh, like a Disney store. It's the Disney store. Yes. But with a room for people to play. A UGL.
Sonny00:33:26Yeah, basically. Basically. That's, uh, that's kind of what it, that's kind of what it comes down to.
?00:33:30All right.
Sonny00:33:31So anyway, it's a, it's, they're going to discover that nobody gives a shit about any
JVL00:33:35of their content. Well, that's K-pop demon hunters.
Sonny00:33:39That's and that, and so that is like the interest.
JVL00:33:41They didn't make K-pop demon hunters.
Sonny00:33:44Well, so that's the other thing. So we can, we can discuss this. Sony is actually the Sony produced K-pop demon hunters. And back in 2021. I think it was, um, sold it along with a bunch of other stuff to Netflix, um, including ancillary rights. They sold the rights to theatrical.
JVL00:34:04They sold the rights to demon pop hunters.
Sonny00:34:07Yep. Oh, so Netflix owns sequel rights to K-pop demon. Now I think my Sony, Sony owns the right. Sony owns the right to produce it. So they'll get some sort of, they'll, they'll make some sort of marginal, you know, cost plus 20%, whatever. But it's like, but here's the thing. So JBL, I, I'm curious to know what you think, to hear what you think about this, Mike, you too, of course, Mike, of course, but, uh, but, but, but I, I do not have girls, Michael.
Mike00:34:37It doesn't matter, but, but continue.
Sonny00:34:39Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I do not think this becomes a cross-cultural phenomenon if it is a theatrical movie first. I think it needs that. I think it needs that kind of slow burn Netflix. Word of mouth kid thing because Netflix, Netflix is huge with kids. It is huge. Like if you look, if you routinely, if you look at the, the things that actually drive their hours watched on a regular basis, not like the new premieres that, you know, if you look at like the total hours watched for, again, stuff like super Mario brothers movie for, uh, for, for, um, uh, the minions movies, things like that. Like that's, that's what kids are. That's what kids are watching. Cocoa melon, et cetera. Uh, so. I do not think this movie is an enormous hit until it, until it hits Netflix. Now, maybe it's worth it to like, kind of take a loss on that first one and then you make, you make it all back on the sequel, but I don't think it's even guaranteed then. I, I just think that this was such a, this is, this, this is an impossible thing to predict. I do not blame. I, I'll put this out there. I do not blame Sony for selling this movie, uh, to Netflix and, or giving up the rights to it to make a sequel.
Mike00:35:54I mean, I think the, the rewatch ability or the rewatch, the, the, the reason this has been so sticky is because girls are rewatching it every time. And the way that kids rewatch movies over and over again, and you can't do that if it's in theaters, right? Like you can do that if it's on your iPad and you just click your Netflix app and you watch it again.
JVL00:36:18It's not, that's the secret little girls though. I mean, here, so here's my entry point to this. Um, my nieces who are both young girls are obsessed with it. And then I learned last night that flashes entire senior class is all obsessed with it. Like this is a, this is a crossover cultural hit that all of the Utes are into. So I, I would say this, I, I agree with you and I think Matthew Bologna wrote this, um, that this wouldn't have worked going the opposite way, going theatrical first and then going to Netflix wouldn't have really done anything. Um, it would have died in theatrical, but doing it this way worked very, very well. You incubate it on Netflix, but that's, that's kind of like the way we used to roll out movies plat, like platforming them where you would release them in a few markets and then a few more markets than a few more markets and let the word of mouth gather. And, and then all of that went away after jaws came out and everybody just opened everything wide. Um, I don't think you can do this with a tent pole movie. So I don't think you could take Superman and put it on Netflix and then after a month and a half, bring it to theaters and have it be big. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope somebody tries it. I think it has to be with, with a niche product where, but what this is, is Netflix is then serving the same. The same purpose that the platforming of releases used to where he was like, Hey, we're going to put it in a few theaters in Brooklyn and then we're going to expand it out to Manhattan and then we'll bring it to Jersey and then eventually it'll make it to LA. And then, you know, by, by the fourth month of release, then we'll have it in 2000 screens. That's, that's how the world used to be. I can, I can see that being something, um, especially with a, a quirky niche. Product like this, which I can't quite understand why this one wound up working.
Sonny00:38:30I mean, I, I know it's, it's yeah, yeah, I can, I can tell you precisely why it's the songs. Yes. It's the song. It's the song. This, this, I, uh, as I, as I was saying to my wife, this is the best animated original film for kids aimed at children that I've seen since Encanto and maybe since frozen. And like the, what do all of these movies have to do with it? What do all three of these things have in common? It's the songs. Like these are the, it has like genuine pop hits that, uh, appeal that are earworms that appeal cross generationally. Like you can like adults liked, let it go. Uh, adults liked, we don't talk about Bruno and adults can like the K-pop stuff here. Half, half the audience at, uh, the screening I went to with my kids was like adult moms singing along. All the songs, you know?
Mike00:39:26Well, can I, can I point out that, you know, because the discussion of, you know, the whole senior class at, at flashes school liking this. Um, so we watched this for the first time, or I should say I wasn't really watching it, but when we were at the beach, um, with our friends who have girls, uh, Amanda, uh, she's, uh, listening to this show right now. Um, uh, her girls loved it and. Played it during some movie time and our boys were watching it and I wasn't really paying attention. I was doing other stuff and, uh, I didn't even really think my boys kind of got a lot out of it. Um, they didn't really talk about it much afterward. I didn't really hear, you know, they weren't sort of saying it like the, in the way that they say, you know, they, they still do chicken jockey to this day. They are talking chicken jockey or singing Steve's lava chicken, uh, that song over and over and over again. So when I told them that, that their mom and I had watched this over the weekend for my, for my podcast, I, I kind of expect them to be like, Oh yeah, that movie. And what I didn't realize was that like, not only is this everywhere throughout their school and the kids are singing the songs all the time, but like my kids actually had very strong opinions about the songs and what their favorite parts were and all this stuff. They just, for whatever reason, like it was a part of. Their lives that, that was like just entirely because school just started and it's, but like they're talking about it at school and it was all of a sudden, Oh, we could talk about this at home now. Cause mom and dad have seen it and it, it really, it, it, it opened up how big this was. I mean, I sort of knew it intellectually, but well, let's talk about the movie. Yeah. Yeah. We should talk about it. Let's talk about a movie. Uh, Sonny, you want to give us a big one? Or a review of K-pop demon hunters, K-pop demon hunters.
Sonny00:41:28Uh, it's about a trio, a girl band, uh, at a Korea that is actually keeping the world safe from demons through, through the magic of song. They sing songs, which creates a sort of force field barrier that keeps out the evil demons from rising up through the earth and stealing the souls of all of all the people. Uh, but one of the, one of the members of the band hunt tricks. Uh, the lead singer, I guess the, the Beyonce of this group, uh, her, she's actually half demon in a plot point, a plot point that's never explained in the movie. Am I right? Yes, it is. Did I miss something?
Mike00:42:09Her father's a demon.
Sonny00:42:11Yeah, but is that actually discussed at all? I, did I miss something?
Mike00:42:16No, they, they, they mentioned at the beginning that, that her mother, uh, really loved the demon dick.
Sonny00:42:22She, she.
Mike00:42:24She's, uh, she's all the patterns, you know, it's, uh, the patterns.
Sonny00:42:28Anyway, I, I didn't, I, I, I, I, okay, fine. I guess they, I guess they mentioned it. Maybe, maybe I was taking my kid to the bathroom or something. Uh, but I, but it was like, one of them's a demon. Uh, uh, the, this, this, uh, is half demon. Well, half demon. She's, she's trying to, they're trying to make the golden shell or whatever appear before the patterns overtake her. I'm not, I'm not using your, I'm not using the Korean words for this. This, uh, stuff at all. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna speak American on this show. That's all. That's what I'm gonna do. Uh, uh, they, they got it. They got a, they got a make the, they got to make the golden shell and they've got the perfect song to do it. Do they use prick dong? But the demons, what's that?
JVL00:43:12Do they use prick dong at any point?
Sonny00:43:14Prick dong? Prick dong? Yes. I, I think that's an important element of the golden shell, um, is the prick dong. The, uh, the, uh, deep cut for some of you people. Deep cut. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a long ago reference, uh, to the, to the Sub-Beacon. Um, uh, anyway, uh, the, uh, long and the short of it here is, uh, the demons decide to create a rival boy band of demons, a rival, a demon, a demon rival boy band, and they come up and they start stealing Huntrix's fans and Huntrix breaks up and the demon, it looks like the demons are about to win. But no, no, uh, Beyonce, Beyonce half demon singer girl from Huntrix realizes that she has to, she has to accept herself.
JVL00:44:06Don't forget the Justin Timberlake from the boy band and their relationship. Don't, don't cheat people of this information, Sonny.
Sonny00:44:16Yeah. There's a, there's like a Romeo and Juliet thing going on between, uh, between the boy, boy and the girl. Anyway. Uh, they, they sing the songs and save the world, um, and defeat the demon menace. That's, that's all I'm going to sort of it. The, the, I would say I, again, it's, it is the, it's the best kids animated movie I have seen in theater since the pandemic, um, on, on a purely on a pure, on a, on a level purely of like, uh, the animation, the combination of the animation and the singing and the action. It all works incredibly well. It, it, it, it has, it has the very, it has, it has look again, as I was saying before, this feels like the first, um, great Disney princess movie since, since frozen really it, because it is both, it is both a general, it's both this kind of general star crossed lovers, you know, girl, girl wants boy story, but also it's very specific. It's rooted in a very specific thing. It's rooted in this world of kids. K-pop with their like fandoms and they're like light up glow stick things. Mike, I don't know if you saw it at the draft house. I saw it at the draft house, uh, with, with my, with my kids. And they had like a, the pre-roll was all explaining like, what, what is K-pop? What are the little light stick things? What do you, what does it mean? You know? And, and it was, it's like, it's, it's both general and specific in the way that successful art of this sort has to be. It also helps that the songs are really catchy. They're real. Look, they're, they're, they're, I, I'm pop is not my thing. I am not a pop guy. I don't, I don't like, I don't have any way to judge this versus Taylor Swift versus Sabrina Carpenter, whatever. Like, but the kids have been listening to it and I've been like, yeah, this is toe tapping, toe tapping, this is I'm tapping my toes. I get it. It's a bop. It's a banger.
JVL00:46:18There's like, I'm cool.
Sonny00:46:20There's like four, there's like four or five bangers on this, on this album. Uh, which, uh, is an enormous hit. It's an enormous hit. So I don't know. I'm like, as far as these things go, I was almost annoyed with myself by how much I enjoyed it in the movie theater. Cause I go, I, you know, I'm a cynical, I'm a cynical guy. I fucking kids stuff, you know, this kid's bullshit. I don't want to have to watch this. I don't, I don't care about K-pop. What is this? What's this? You're a man. What's this girl shit? I don't care about this, but it's, it's really good. It's, it's very, it's like shockingly, it's like distressingly good. It's a, it's very, it's very, I'm annoyed by how much I enjoyed it. So that's my big boy.
JVL00:47:13Sonny won't like Barbie, but he'll show up for K-pop demon. It's fascinating.
Sonny00:47:19Barbie is not Barbie. Barbie is not nearly as good as Barbie wishes. It was this good. The songs in Barbie are garbage compared to this. Barbie, Barbie can go sit on a tack.
Mike00:47:30I like that Matchbox 20 song though. JVL.
JVL00:47:35So look, I mean, this is what happens when you mash up Jem and the Holograms with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is almost like the literal definition of what you would get if you tell somebody to put those two franchises into a blender. Yes. The, the girls. Of the group are literally demon slayers. Like Buffy is a vampire slayer. There's an angel character. The, the, the demon with a soul who Buffy rescues, who is the Justin Timberlake character in the boy band. Um, it looks really good with one exception, which is that they very intentionally, the, the animation, the drawings are beautiful. The lines are beautiful, but the motion between the frame. Is a little bit jaggy in a very intentional anime style, which I, I just wanted it to be smooth, like I just wanted to, I wanted it to, I wanted the animation to flow in the way that, uh, spider verse does, and this did not. And it's a choice. It's just a choice that I don't like the aesthetic of, and it sort of bugged me the whole time. Um, I didn't like the music or maybe it's just that I thought that the hit rate and there is so many songs in this thing. Yes. I mean, every time I watch it, I made G money, watch it with me. We played Rummy while we, while we sat through it to, to get through the thing. And like every, we were just like another song, there's another song. And I think there are probably three or four, like pretty good songs in it. Like, and not good songs, but like bops as we would say, but there's like 17 tracks in this thing. It's just like an, oh, they're, they're singing again. They're saying, you know, the hit rate. It's not, it's not super great. There's a lot of book numbers in there to me, many, the market clearly disagrees.
Sonny00:49:31I would just say, I think you're, I think you've been proven wrong on that one.
JVL00:49:35Yes. I am not the target demo for this, obviously, but I am constitutionally primed to be in for something like this. Like really like I'm the type of guy who, who actually is like, yeah, yeah. Sign me up. It's quirky. It's Buffy, the vampire slayer. It's animated. It looks like, and I. I was just like, when can this thing be over? Hmm. When can this be over?
Mike00:49:59It just didn't work for me.
JVL00:50:00And I, again, I'm the minority. This is the biggest, this thing is going to make more money than fantastic for, and Superman put together when all is said and done just as a, as a, this is going to be a billion dollar enterprise. Yeah. And it's going to sell all of the costumes and lunch boxes and stick hers and toys, and we will be sitting and living with K-pop demon hunters as part of our cultural furniture for a decade, a decade from now, we're going to
Mike00:50:36be having a show where like, Oh, I remember that first K-pop demon hunters. That was pretty good. Number seven was a little weak.
JVL00:50:42We get, you know, and uh, JVL that's ridiculous.
Mike00:50:45We won't be having a show in a decade.
JVL00:50:47Fair enough.
Mike00:50:48It'll all be AI.
JVL00:50:48I don't know. So what, Michael, did you, did you like it?
Mike00:50:51So, uh, yes. I really liked it. I really enjoyed it, but I want to say that I felt, and I think maybe this has something to do, Sonny, with your comment, your observation that the reason it succeeds is because of its specificity, because I felt almost like I was missing something as I was watching it. Um, and I think what I'm missing is it's a testament to how well the movie was made that I still loved it and it worked really well for me, but like, I, I felt like there was another level of it that I wasn't able to access because I am unfamiliar with, um, Korean mythology and, um, and, and myth and, and that's the whole, the demons, but also like the, the tiger and the six eyed bird. And like, or just the whole thing was like, I felt like. I was sort of on the outside looking in being like, oh, like if I understood what this stuff meant, it would, it would be, it would be great on a whole other level.
Sonny00:52:05Yeah. There's a spirited away aspect to this movie where it's like, clearly these are things that mean things that I don't understand. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike00:52:14Yes. And, and again, it's, it, it, for me as somebody watching this as an adult and sort of knowing that we're going to talk about it, knowing that. Um, you know, all the kids are watching it, you know, it was something that for me, I was just noticing it didn't really even take me out of the movie. It was just, I just kept going, huh? I feel like I need to know more about that, but I just don't.
Sonny00:52:37But I don't think you do. I mean, I, I, again, to go back to the frozen example, there's, there's no reason to look any more askance at that than you would at like an Olaf.
Mike00:52:46Yeah, no, no, no. I might, I'm, and I'm not looking askance at it. I just had, I had a couple of moments where I was. I was almost like, I wish I knew more.
Sonny00:52:56I wish your bias has been remarked upon. All right. Your, your inability to accept the other, I know I accept it.
Mike00:53:03I loved it. It was great. My kids.
Sonny00:53:05Oh, I love the Germanic snowman.
Mike00:53:08No, my favorite, my absolute favorite side character in a long time is this big, giant, blue, ugly, uh, tiger, uh, that has letters on its tongue and it sticks. I loved it. It was great, but I do think the songs are, you're right. That that's what, that's what is making this, uh, have this staying power because they're all, well, okay. The Hunter songs are all really good. The Sasha boys, I'm sorry. Like soda pop. It's, it's not good. Team Huntrix. I'm all of course, of course I'm team Huntrix. So, okay. So maybe we should do a ranking thing of the songs because, um, because I think it's clear that golden is the best.
Sonny00:53:53Yeah, obviously.
Mike00:53:55Okay. Thank you. Um, uh, a friend of mine who's also a listener, um, he put, uh, he put what it sounds like as the number one song, which is, yeah, it's, it's, it's a good song, but like it's, it's golden. It's obviously golden. And by the way, the technical skill that it takes for the singer to, to, to like, to have the range in that song, it's really impressive from like a musical, uh, perspective. So, um, I put golden up there. Soda pop though. And I do like that.
Sonny00:54:23Soda pop sucks. Soda pop is garbage. That's a, I need the fact that the fact that the Korean mass audience was so easily swayed by soda pop and abandoned the, the, the trio of hunt tricks is just goes to show you how fickle public opinion is, frankly. Exactly.
Mike00:54:43By the way, can I, uh, I also want to add that the, um, uh, the, there were some very awkward moments. I was thinking about that. My kids were watching all the stuff with like the guy with the abs and then like the girls with like the popcorn coming out of their eyes and like eating and all that stuff. Like, I don't know. It was just, it's the kind of thing that like, if I had girls, I'd be like, I don't know how I, I don't know how I'd feel about that. But like for my boys, I'm sure that just like went right over their heads. So anyway, that's all.
Sonny00:55:20I think it's, I think it's, uh, I don't know. I mean, I, it's funny. Because I was, I was kind of wondering the same thing and I was like, ah, I don't know. This is like, it's a childish teenage teen tween, uh, attraction. It's fine. Totally.
Mike00:55:35It was fine. It was just the, the, it was, it was like a female version of the, the old wolf in the, uh, in the old cartoon. Yeah. Yeah. Where he's like hitting himself in the head.
JVL00:55:47Uh, but this is funny. Those things are also like the, the pineapple eyes. All of this stuff is just shorthand that you see. All through anime stuff. Correct.
Sonny00:55:56Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:55:56I mean, this is, yeah, this is all straight from like sailor moon type, uh, references. And so it's, I don't know. I, the stuff that I found was charming about it actually was the extent to which it did bring in the sensibility of just a different cultures animating style. Yes. So the part I liked most about it, frankly.
Sonny00:56:19Yeah.
Mike00:56:20But it's, that's now the mainstream, right? That's something that's been saying for. For a while. Like you have been saying, JVL, like anime is what our kids like and prefer. So, yeah.
Sonny00:56:32I mean, anime inflects a lot of modern. Oh, sorry. Sorry.
Mike00:56:37My apologies. Apologies to Vic.
Sonny00:56:39Anime does in, in, in is reflected in a lot of even modern Western animation, like the, the Pixar, the kind of big wide loping mouth stuff. And, you know, some of that is like the Cal art style, but like there there's, there's a lot of like a one piece and stuff like that.
?00:56:57Yeah.
Mike00:56:58All right. Do we have any other thoughts on K-pop demon hunters? No, no. All right. Well, that is all the time we're going to give to this episode. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, if they want to listen to the show, they can only do it at Sub-Beacon.com. And we'll talk to you next time. Um, yeah, I, uh, here's, here's one other thing. I wasn't thrilled with, with this movie was the depiction of the big bad, um, as not being like corporeal, but being like fire. I don't know. I was like, I was, I expected, I expected a little more, you know, I don't know. That was then that was another area where I was like, well, is this something in like Korean mythology that I just unfamiliar with? Um, cause it seemed like kind of a copy.
JVL00:57:53Um, I think this is all, all Eastern mythology is based around the idea that things are not really humanoid. They're, you know, they take elemental or animal fair enough.
Mike00:58:05So, okay. So there, that's my, that's my bias again.
Sonny00:58:08That's my, it's like an animist sort of.
Mike00:58:11Yes. Okay. So, okay.
JVL00:58:12Well then I, uh, no, I wanted to like it. Maybe, you know, maybe I'll have to give it another chance. I don't know. You guys, you guys are turning me around on this thing.
Sonny00:58:23Well, that's the worst song. Don't sing that song. God.
Mike00:58:27It only gets better from here.
Sonny00:58:29Uh, yeah. I'm sure it's fine.
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