How can you build a lasting fandom? That was the question at the heart of Variety and Adobe’s “Storytelling for Fans – The Future of Audience Engagement” panel at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.
At Adobe House, Variety’s Angelique Jackson was the moderator, and panelists included Stacy Martinet, Adobe’s vice president of marketing strategy and communications. Jason Cassidy, Vice Chairman of Focus Features. Dawn Yang, Global Head of Entertainment Partnerships at TikTok. Mason Gooding’s latest acting role is in the Sundance premiere of “I Want Your Sex.” and “KPop Demon Hunters” screenwriter Hannah McMeachan.
McMeechan built an enduring fan base with the explosive success of “KPop Demon Hunter.” Its passionate fanbase reflects a highly engaged ecosystem of both KPop and anime fans. Online, the “Demon Hunters” fandom thrives through TikTok edits, fancam-style character clips, lore-deconstructing threads, and fan art that treats the animated characters like a real musical group. The film was nominated for the Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.
“We believed that if we did it right, our fans would eat this alive,” McMeechan said of developing a KPop fan base. “As we were all KPop fans, we always thought that if KPop fans found this, it would be a big hit. But if it was buried and never made it to market, no one would probably see it.”
Of course, this animated film eventually caught the attention of KPop fans. The film broke Netflix records and was watched over 518 million times in about six months, making it the most-watched film in Netflix history.
From an actor’s perspective, developing a fandom is “recognizing what it has to say – what a movie, TV show, or book is trying to say to an audience, and articulating that through performance in a way that resonates with the people watching it,” Mason Gooding said.
“I love that this generation, compared to previous generations, has in some ways taken away the focus on the individual and allowed more communal or social dynamics to occur, especially in the art world as it relates to film,” he continued.
There is no better platform to foster this communal and social dynamic than TikTok, which allows projects to intersect organically with the culture at large. Yang, TikTok’s global head of partnerships, pointed to a fan edit to Ryan Coogler’s Sinners that she and her team believed had a direct correlation to the film’s box office success. Following its weekend release, the platform was quickly flooded with a variety of original content about the film, from a montage highlighting Coogler’s filmography to a mashup of the animated “Sinners” (yes, there is that) and, of course, a fan edit of Michael B. Jordan.
“People saw the movie, people started talking about it, people started editing it, and it had a really good box office hit,” she said.
McMeechan also cited TikTok as a driving force behind the success of KPop Demon Hunters. “That’s why that movie was such a big hit,” she said, noting that there was virtually no marketing other than the trailer. “It was completely people making edits on TikTok, and then it exploded.”
Mr. Gooding ended the panel with perhaps the most apt statement. “There’s storytelling for the fans, but more importantly, it’s storytelling with the fans.”
