How does one build an enduring fandom? That was the question at the center of Variety and Adobe’s Storytelling for Fans — The Future of Audience Engagement panel at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
Moderated by Variety’s Angelique Jackson at the Adobe House, panelists included Stacy Martinet, VP of marketing strategy & communications at Adobe; Jason Cassidy, vice chairman atFocus Features; Dawn Yang, global head of entertainment partnerships at TikTok; Mason Gooding, whose latest acting role is in Sundance premiere “I Want Your Sex”; and Hannah McMechan, screenwriter of “KPop Demon Hunters.”
McMehan found an enduring fandom with the explosive success of “KPop Demon Hunters,” whose passionate fanbase mirrors the hyper-engaged ecosystems of both KPop stans and anime devotees. Online, the “Demon Hunters” fandom thrives via TikTok edits, fancam-style character clips, lore breakdown threads and fan art that treats the animated characters like real music groups. The film received an Oscar nomination for best animated feature and best original song.
“We believed that the fans would just eat this alive if we did it justice,” McMehan said about tapping into the KPop fanbase. “All of us were KPop fans so the whole time we were like, if this finds the KPop fans, it will blow up. But if it’s buried and it’s not marketed, then maybe no one will see it.”
The animated film did, of course, end up reaching KPop fans. The movie shattered records on Netflix, becoming the streamer’s most-watched film of all time with over 518 million views in roughly six months.
From an actor’s perspective, tapping into a fandom is about “recognizing what a thing has to say — what a movie, TV show, book is trying to articulate to its audience and articulating that through performance in a way that resonates with the people watching it,” said Mason Gooding.
“I love that this generation, in juxtaposition to the ones that came before, has kind of removed the focus on the individual,” he continued, “and allowed a more communal or social dynamic to take place in the landscape of art, specifically as it relates to film.”
Love Film & TV?
Get your daily dose of everything happening in music, film and TV in Australia and abroad.
No platform is better at fostering this communal, social dynamic than TikTok, which allows projects to organically intersect with the culture at large. Yang, the global head of partnerships at TikTok, pointed to fan edits made for Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” which she and the team believed had a direct correlation with the film’s high box office success. After opening weekend, the platform was immediately flooded with a range of original content about the film — from montages highlighting Coogler’s filmography, anime “Sinners” mash-ups (yes, that’s a thing) and, of course, Michael B. Jordan fan edits.
“People saw the movie, started talking about the movie, started doing some edits, and then there was that very high box office result,” she said.
McMechan also points to TikTok as a driving force of “KPop Demon Hunters” success. “That is why that movie blew up,” she said, pointing out that there was effectively no other marketing aside from the trailer. “It was fully just people making edits on TikTok — and then it blew up.”
Gooding perhaps put it best, wrapping up the panel: “There’s storytelling for fans, but more important is the storytelling with fans.”
From Variety US