The Netflix animated hit has swept nearly every major precursor ahead of the Academy Awards on March 16
Netflix's animated sensation "KPop Demon Hunters" won the Producers Guild of America Award for best animated feature on Saturday night in Los Angeles, the latest in a virtually unbroken string of wins that has all but cemented its status as an overwhelming favorite for the Oscars.
Producer Michelle Wong took home the prize at the ceremony held at the Fairmont Century Plaza, beating out "The Bad Guys 2," "Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle," "Elio" and "Zootopia 2."
The PGA ceremony also handed its top live-action prize to Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another," while "Adolescence" won for best limited series.
For "KPop Demon Hunters," the PGA win extends an awards season run that has been unusually dominant for an animated feature, let alone one released on a streaming platform.
Directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, the Sony Pictures Animation production won best animated feature and best original song for "Golden" at both the Golden Globes and the Critics' Choice Awards in January.
In February, it swept the Annie Awards -- the animation industry's most prominent honors -- taking all 10 categories for which it was nominated, including best feature, best direction and best voice acting for Arden Cho. "Golden" also picked up the Grammy for best song written for visual media at the ceremony on Feb. 1.
The one major awards body where it didn't compete was BAFTA; the film's British theatrical release came two months after it began streaming, which fell short of the academy's eligibility requirements.
All of which points strongly toward an Oscar win on March 16 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The PGA is widely regarded as a reliable bellwether in the animated category, with the guild's membership of more than 8,400 producers across film and television offering a broad cross-section of industry support.
Fourteen of the past 20 PGA winners in animation have gone on to claim the best animated feature at the Academy Awards, though the pattern has broken in each of the last two years: "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" and "The Wild Robot" won the guild prize but lost the Oscar to "The Boy and the Heron" and "Flow."
This year's competition may not pose as stiff a challenge for the streaming megahit. "Zootopia 2," which won the BAFTA and crossed $1 billion at the global box office, is a sequel, a format the Academy has traditionally been reluctant to reward in the animated category. "Elio," Pixar's other contender in the best animated category, earned 10 Annie nominations but underperformed commercially and drew mixed reviews.
Since its release on Netflix in June 2025, "KPop Demon Hunters" has become the platform's most-watched title of all time, with over 500 million views.
A sing-along theatrical run last summer grossed $19 million in the United States and Canada and became the first Netflix release to top the box office there.
The film is nominated for both best animated feature and best original song at the 98th Academy Awards.
moonkihoon@heraldcorp.com
