How KPop Demon Hunters became the surprise Netflix smash of the summer

School is out, young audiences are available, and yet still, Hollywood animation is having a bad summer at the box office. In contrast to last year, when Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 occupied two of the season’s top three (and combined for about $2.7bn worldwide), it seems entirely possible that not a single fully animated movie will crack the top 10. Adding insult to injury: the Disney-Pixar original Elio has been trounced by “live-action” remakes of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, which faithfully reproduce old cartoons with bland new actors and CG visual effects. With younger audiences steered toward those movies and seemingly