by Rollin Bishop

I won't bury the lede: McDonald's is getting not one but two individual KPop Demon Hunters meals starting next week, March 31, in the United States. As re:frame's resident physical, tangible media/ephemera and KPop Demon Hunters aficionado, it's a targeted hit; my battleship's sunk.

To top it all off, there's an honest-to-goodness animated commercial that was "made in collaboration with all the teams from the original movie," according to Guillaume Huin, McDonald's senior marketing director. In a very real way, it's a KPop Demon Hunters "sequel" that's also an ad for hashbrowns and fries. See for yourself:

The fact that the ad reuses about as many props and models and designs as possible from the movie isn't exactly surprising, and it has the same sort of slightly-too-fast cadence that most ads do on top of a budget that clearly did not approach the level of a feature film. It is what it is, and it is: fine. I'm happy for everyone involved; I'm just glad to be here. Hashtag RUJINU.

I'll try not to get bogged down in the meal specifics, because I know myself and certainly could, but the important details are that the Saja Boys and HUNTR/X will each have their own meal in addition to two new McNugget sauces in the HUNTR/X one: Hunter Sauce and Demon Sauce. (The sauces are "quite similar" to the BTS Meal sauces, which were Cajun and Sweet Chili, per Huin.)

Each meal also comes with two photocards featuring members from one of the two groups, which, of course. For a lot of people, that's likely to be the selling point. I've given up eating fast food for the past several years, and even I'm considering buying a couple just for the photocards alone.

The fact that this is happening now instead of literally any point in the last several months feels indicative of just how much power the franchise — which consists of a single movie at this point — already has. There's no real promotion going on here; KPop Demon Hunters hit Netflix almost a year ago. A year ago! Netflix typically forgets about its content within four weeks, let alone close to 52.

It's hard not to see this as McDonald's, the giant international fast food restaurant chain, hitching its wagon to KPop Demon Hunters, despite the fact that it is considered ancient within the streaming ecosystem. I'm not privy to all the business wheeling and dealing going on, but the timing just… arguably does not actually benefit KPop Demon Hunters at all? It already won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film! There's nothing to promote for years at this point, assuming a real sequel does eventually arrive in 2029 or later.

But it does benefit McDonald's to, even late, get in on this before any inevitable sequel. According to a recent report by Puck, the outsized success of the original appears to have everyone playing catch up as Netflix reportedly hadn't actually locked in sequel terms with KPop Demon Hunters directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans before it went to the moon and back. As such, Kang and Appelhans have apparently scored an exclusive agreement worth roughly $10 million between them annually on top of some merchandising and so on.

It remains to be seen whether this actually benefits the animation industry as a whole. You'd hope so, of course, but only rebellions are built on hope. "Just how this one movie has punched through, we were all kind of hoping that there would be some kind of, like, rain for the crops or something," said Matt Braly when we spoke about Clara & the Below and circled around to the topic of massive cultural impact of KPop Demon Hunters. "But it does not seem like that is really what is playing out."

None of this is exactly typical. It's entirely fair to view this as exactly what it is: an opportunity for people that are making money to make more money. By and large, corporations are exactly as cowardly as you suspect and will take every opportunity to prove it to you. Is this a belated show of faith in an industry stuck chasing trends? Is animation only as good as its mascots?

At the same time, such demand should be typical. Maybe the creators of successful franchises should be paid according to the value they create. For now, some new McDonald's sauces will have to be enough.