Netflix’s Record-Breaking Hit Beats Box Office Newcomers, Regretting You & Black Phone 2 Battle Has Huge Shakeup (Sunday Update)

KPop Demon Hunters has bested Halloween weekend’s new releases, but another No. 1 win is not in his sights. The fantasy musical, which debuted on Netflix on June 20, has since become the streaming platform’s most-watched movie of all time. It has shattered other records as well.

In addition to “Golden” becoming the first song by a KPop girl group (fictional or otherwise) to hit No. 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, four tracks from the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack landed in the Top 10 simultaneously, which is the first time this has ever happened for a movie soundtrack. When it hit theaters for a one-weekend sing-along presentation, the movie also became Netflix’s first No. 1 theatrical release ever.

for Varietyas of Sunday morning, KPop Demon Hunters (which has returned to theaters in sing-along form over Halloween weekend) is projected to earn a 3-day total of $6 million (a huge boost from initial $3.4 million projections) by the end of its second nonconsecutive weekend at the domestic box office.

While it is not expected to top the chart this time, KPop Demon Hunters has defeated the new releases that have descended into theaters over a quiet Halloween. This includes the Indian movie Baahubali: The Epic and the wide expansion of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugoniawhich stars Emma Stone and earned a Certified Fresh 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The only movies expected to outdo KPop Demon Hunters are holdover titlesmost notably Regretting You (an adaptation of the romance novel of the same name by It Ends with Us author Colleen Hoover) and Black Phone 2 (Blumhouse’s sequel to their hit 2022 Joe Hill adaptation).

The movies, which both star How to Train Your Dragon breakout Mason Thames, have been locked in a head-to-head battle for No. 1 all weekend. As of Saturday, Black Phone 2 had pulled ahead with 3-day projections of $7.6 million compared to Regretting You‘s $6.6 million. However, following a sleepy Halloween day on Friday, Saturday’s numbers have seen the latter’s projections surge.

This Weekend’s Domestic Box Office Top 5

Instead of slowing down as expected, Regretting You is now projected to earn $8.1 million compared to Black Phone 2 Fr. $8 millionaccording to Paramount’s calculations, although other sources are projecting it to earn $7.2 million. While it is still too close to call which title will end up at No. 1, Regretting You could belatedly score a major record.

f Regretting You had opened at No. 1 instead of No. 2, it would have been Mason Thames’ third No. 1 debut of 2025 after How to Train Your Dragon and Black Phone 2. The only time a star has had three No. 1 debuts in the same calendar year was when Jim Carrey starred in 1994’s The Mask, Ace Ventura: Pet Detectiveand Dumb and Dumber.

While that triple No. 1 debut record remains unbroken, having three movies hit No. 1 at any point during their runs in the same year would still put the 18-year-old actor in rarefied air. Below, see the full domestic Top 5 chart for the weekend:

One thing that has allowed there to be so much movement on the chart is the fact that the previous weekend’s No. 1 title, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, plummeted down to either No. 3 or No. 4depending on whether KPop Demon Hunters is able to topple it. It’s looking at a week-on-week drop of 67%.

Anime titles, while increasingly popular in the US, tend to be very frontloaded, so this is not a shocking sophomore weekend development.

Meanwhile, the wide expansion of Bugonia claimed the No. 5 spots. In tandem with KPop Demon Huntersit has knocked the previous weekend’s No. 4 and No. 5 titles (the underwhelming biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere and the DOA sci-fi tentpole Throne: Aresrespectively) off the board completely.

All in all, although there has been considerable excitement in the race for No. 1 over Halloween weekend, the holiday falling on a Friday combined with studios eschewing new tentpole releases has resulted in the lowest-grossing domestic box office weekend of the yearwith all titles expected to earn a combined total of just $49 million.

In fact, no individual release is expected to earn an eight-figure number or higherwhich will mark the first time that this has happened in more than seven months, since the weekend of March 14.

That weekend was led by the Jack Quaid action-comedy Novocaine ($8.8 million), Steven Soderbergh’s spy film Black Bag ($7.6 million), and the second weekend of Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi movie Mickey 17 ($7.4 million).

neither KPop Demon Hunters‘ draw diminishes months after its streaming premiere, the box office will have to wait until later in November to have an influx of cash. Luckily, a wide variety of promising IP tentpoles are coming soon, including Predator: Badlands, The Running Man, Wicked: For Goodand Zootopia 2.

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Release Date

June 20, 2025

Runtime

96 minutes

Director

Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang

Writers

Hannah McMechan, Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang, Danya Jimenez

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