{"id":339535,"date":"2025-12-10T14:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T14:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339535\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T14:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T14:01:08","slug":"the-directors-of-elio-and-kpop-demon-hunters-talk-about-the-reality-of-selling-diverse-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/339535\/","title":{"rendered":"The Directors of ‘Elio’ and ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Talk About the Reality of Selling Diverse Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent Hollywood Reporter animation roundtable<\/a>, KPop Demon Hunters<\/a> filmmaker Maggie Kang<\/a> and Elio<\/a> co-director Domee Shi (Turning Red<\/a>) discussed pushing for representation in a time when studios seem to be playing it safe with sequels. It\u2019s a triumph when an original story like KPop Demon Hunters hits big. But original stories can also be mishandled behind the scenes, contributing to less-than-robust box office returns, as was seemingly the case with Elio.<\/a><\/p>\n

Shi was brutally honest in talking about the Elio rollout. \u201cFrom my experience making movies, making animated films is hard and a financial risk regardless of if they\u2019re originals or sequels. Just because something is a sequel doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s guaranteed to be successful,\u201d she said, with the added context of having come off the surprise pandemic-era hit of Turning Red.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like at least at Pixar, we\u2019re always trying to figure out how to continue telling unique and original stories that everyone could relate to and love. But it\u2019s been tough\u2026 Elio was released this summer and got massacred at the box office, to put it bluntly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Elio\u00a9 Pixar <\/p>\n

Shi continued to posit that Pixar is noticing, despite the numbers, that the characters have gotten a lot of appreciation in the animation fan community. \u201cBut the people who have seen it love it. And it\u2019s just a big challenge,\u201d she said. \u201cHow do you push original theatrical kinds of films through all of the noise, through all of the media and content that\u2019s being released?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shi also gave Kang her flowers for the success of KPop Demon Hunters, describing it as \u201csuch a beacon of hope and light for original films,\u201d and added, \u201cI hope with the success of films like KPop that big studios will be wanting to take more creative risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kang shone light on what was hardly an overnight sensation, despite KPop Demon Hunters seeming like one upon release on Netflix. She said of the years-long journey to get it made at Sony Animation, \u201cWe [you] first start pitching a movie, you immediately talk to marketing. So marketing is involved and has a very big say on what kind of films get made at a certain studio. I truly believe that the K-pop of it all [in] our film got it greenlit.\u201d<\/p>\n

With K-pop leading the way, original creativity followed. \u201cI was just like, \u2018I\u2019m gonna take this K-pop idea and make it the most Korean personal movie that I can make as a Korean creator,\u2019 just to see Korean representation on screen,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a Korean person and seeing and hearing from other Koreans as well\u2014we\u2019ve never had that representation, like of our culture of [these] women just in different garb, like traditional Korean garb. [We\u2019ve] just never seen that before, and my parents, the first time they saw it, were crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kang is realistic, however, about what is viewed as the formula for success. \u201cI\u2019m an animation kid that grew up in the big studio machine. I spent most of my career at DreamWorks, and we\u2019re always thinking about \u2018what can we sell?\u2019. Animation can be at the big studio level; they\u2019re very expensive to make, so you want less risk,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat are the ideas that are going to get the most eyes on this product? On this film?\u2019 And so I think that\u2019s just kind of how I\u2019m thinking all the time. I\u2019m always thinking about ways to link the marketability of an idea with something very personal and then making and finding a story within that\u2014with a character\u2019s journey that is very universal and relatable to anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the rest of the animation roundtable below:<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a recent Hollywood Reporter animation roundtable, KPop Demon Hunters filmmaker Maggie Kang and Elio co-director Domee Shi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,188712,134,28936,44823,344,435,98236,188713,188714],"class_list":{"0":"post-339535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-domee-shi","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-kpop-demon-hunters","13":"tag-maggie-kang","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-netflix","16":"tag-pixar","17":"tag-sony-animation","18":"tag-turning-red"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}