A Netflix ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Short Film Has Been Rated For Release

Everyone has wondered what may be the next step for KPop Demon Hunters as an IP, given its record-breaking success on Netflix. Now, the answer may be something exactly no one predicted.

According to a new filing with the MPA, something called Debut: A KPop Demon Hunters Story has been rated PG by the ratings body. It’s listed alongside some other films, and this is obviously something that has not been publicly announced.

A short film could be well, very short, a few minutes, and likely no more than ten. Even that might be pushing it. Using say, Pixar shorts as a reference, most are between 4 and 8 minutes. The original movie is an hour and 36 minutes.

The “Debut” in the title indicates some sort of flashback, perhaps to when HUNTR/X first arrived on the scene before they blew up. Previously, director Maggie Kang has commented about how there were more backstory components that were supposed to be in the film that were cut, but hinted those could be explored in a sequel. But perhaps some may be put into a short here. I very much doubt those scenes were fully produced and simply cut, but perhaps they were finished up for this short film here.

When would Debut: KPop Demon Hunters theoretically arrive? I’m not sure the other films on the list are much help. Dead of Winter is out in less than two weeks. Mother Mary does not have a release date. Ne Zha 2 came out earlier this year. I’ve only seen news stories saying The Perfect Gamble was supposed to come out in Q1 2025, but I’ve seen no evidence that it actually has.

It could be sooner rather than later as Netflix looks to capitalize on the extreme popularity of the movie before it fades. Not that it is fading, necessarily, as the movie remains inside the top 3 in Netflix’s top 10 movie list three months after it first arrived.

Netflix almost never does short films at all, but obviously with something like KPop Demon Hunters, exceptions could be made. If this is real and does make it fruition, it will be funny to a six-minute movie make it to the top of the top 10 list for three weeks or something like that.

I don’t know if this rating submission means that Netflix is about to officially announce this. All the other projects on the list have been announced, so unless this document is some weirdly elaborate fake (it is on the official MPA site), we should probably hear something soon.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.