Nielsen Top 10 Upset: Did KPop Demon Hunters Beat A James Gunn DCU Movie?

Well, this is not how I expected September to go: Netflix's animated K-pop fantasy just outpaced the Man of Steel. Yes, really.

KPop Demon Hunters just beat Superman on Nielsen

For the week of September 15–21, 2025, Nielsen's U.S. streaming movies chart has 'KPop Demon Hunters' at No. 1 with 828 million minutes watched. James Gunn's 'Superman' (the DCU relaunch) pulled a hefty 513 million minutes in its HBO Max debut, which was good enough for No. 4 overall that week, trailing breakout competition like 'KPop Demon Hunters' and 'Ice Road: Vengeance'.

Meanwhile, Netflix is leaning into the hype in a very un-Netflix way: they're rolling out a theatrical sing-along version with more than 1,300 sold-out screenings (per Netflix's Tudum). An animated K-pop action movie outpacing DC's flagship on streaming says a lot about where the audience is right now; this thing's reach is cutting straight through any superhero fatigue James Gunn is trying to fix.

The receipts: records it is smashing

• Streaming - Longest Netflix Top 10 run: 15 straight weeks on Netflix's Top 10, passing 'Red Notice'.
• Streaming - Most-watched Netflix animated film: now the platform's top animated original by a wide margin.
• Streaming - Fastest to 300M and 325M views: the quickest Netflix film to both milestones, topping marks set by 'Red Notice' and 'Squid Game'.
• Streaming - Most-viewed animated feature (English-language): highest ever for a Netflix animated feature; No. 2 among all English-language films on the service.
• Streaming - Peak Nielsen minutes: hit an all-time weekly high of 949 million minutes at its peak, still the best single-week total for a streaming movie.
• Streaming - Recurrent surge: the only Netflix film to notch a new weekly viewership peak several weeks after release and to repeatedly re-enter the overall Top 10.
• Music - Fastest album to 3 billion Spotify streams: quickest by any Asian act, and it did it in under three months.
• Music - Four Hot 100 Top 10s at once: four soundtrack tracks landed in the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 simultaneously.
• Music - 'Golden' domination: the theme song 'Golden' ruled the Billboard Hot 100 for 6 weeks and the UK Singles Chart for 7, a first for a K-pop group or a film song.
• Music - Highest-charting movie OST of 2025: debuted in the Billboard 200 Top 10 and set the year’s high-water mark for film soundtracks.
• Music - Longest-running No. 1 by an animated act: eight straight weeks at the top.
• Music - HUNTR/X on Spotify: the in-movie group hit No. 2 on Spotify's U.S. charts and, in the process, surpassed BLACKPINK to become the platform's most-streamed female K-pop act.
• Music - Fictional act milestone: HUNTR/X became the first fictional musical act to break into the U.S. Streaming Songs Top 10 in the chart's 12-year history.

So how did 'Superman' actually do?

Pretty well, honestly. That same September 15–21 window gave 'Superman' 513 million minutes, which is one of the stronger streaming bows for a superhero film this year. It also delivered HBO Max's biggest opening weekend for a Warner Bros. movie in 2025, beating other recent DC titles like 'Blue Beetle' and 'The Flash' (2023), and outpacing rival Marvel debuts on Disney+. It did not outdraw 'KPop Demon Hunters', but the numbers are still legit.

'KPop Demon Hunters' is streaming on Netflix in the U.S. 'Superman' is streaming on HBO Max in the U.S. What did you think of the matchup?