KPop Demon Hunters Fans Just Got Great News About A Live-Action Netflix Adaptation

"KPop Demon Hunters" is a double whammy. It's both Netflix's best 2025 animated movie and has broken a huge viewing record for the streamer, proving that quality and quantity can meet when the stars align. The movie's gleefully outlandish story is precisely what it says on the label; Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) are a popular K-Pop band called Huntr/x, who also happen to pull double duty as a highly effective demon-hunting team that protects the world from supernatural threats.

When an animated movie becomes popular enough — and "KPop Demon Hunters" certainly has done so — it's inevitable that today's entertainment industry puts one question on the table: "How can we turn this into a lackluster live-action version to profit even more?" If you ask "KPop Demon Hunters" directors and co-writers Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, however, there's good news: that won't happen, at least not if they have any say in the matter. As they told Entertainment Weekly in a new interview, their film will absolutely not receive a live-action treatment in the foreseeable future. Said Kang: 

"There's so many elements of the tone and the comedy that are so suited for animation. It's really hard to imagine these characters in a live-action world. It would feel too grounded. So totally it wouldn't work for me."

The creators are right to be wary about live-action adaptations. According to our 2022 reader poll, Netflix's abysmal "Death Note" is the worst live-action anime adaptation of all time. While "KPop Demon Hunters" isn't an anime film, the demon-infested "Death Note" is still positively muted compared to its purposefully exaggerated visuals and stylish musical numbers. As such, there's reason to believe that a live-action version would fail to re-bottle the very particular type of lightning that made the animated film such a success. This is something Appelhans knows all too well, according to the Entertainment Weekly interview: 

"One of the great things about animation is that you make these composites of impossibly great attributes. Rumi can be this goofy comedian and then singing and doing a spinning back-kick a second later and then freefalling through the sky. The joy of animation is how far you can push and elevate what's possible. I remember [Netflix] adapted a lot of different animes and often times, it just feels a little stilted."

Of course, Netflix itself may have other ideas. In August, /Film's own Rafael Motamayor reported that the streamer wants to make a "KPop Demon Hunters" live-action adaptation and explained why it would be a bad idea. Since the movie's creators (whose cooperation Netflix likely needs to secure for the inevitable animated sequel) seem vehemently opposed to the idea, though, there may be hope that Netflix will ultimately opt against this approach.