The last few times Danya Jimenez and Hannah McMechan have shown up to a movie theater, they’ve been greeted by eager fans of their film “KPop Demon Hunters” — and the Santa Fe International Film Festival was no exception. During Variety ’s 10 Screenwriters to Watch panel, where the writing duo was among the scribes honored, the front row of the Sky Cinemas theater was filled with tween fans eager to learn how the animated sensation came to fruition.

“We started writing that in 2020 during the pandemic,” Jimenez recalled. “At first, we were like, ‘This is going to be the biggest movie ever, and then as time passed, we were like, ‘Maybe it won’t get made. Who knows?’ And then we were on set this summer and the trailer dropped and we were shocked. You don’t really expect anything from this

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