Netflix has found another major animated success in Swapped, a family-friendly fantasy comedy that has achieved the platform’s biggest single-week audience ever recorded for an animated movie.
The film climbed to the top of Netflix’s English-language movie chart after attracting 38.7 million views during the week of May 4–10, 2026. Netflix confirmed that the result was the highest viewership total achieved by any animated film on the service within a single week.
That performance placed Swapped ahead of several of Netflix’s previous animation hits. KPop Demon Hunters, despite becoming a much larger long-term phenomenon, reached a peak of approximately 30.1 million views in its strongest individual week.
A Body-Swapping Adventure Between Natural Enemies
Released on Netflix on May 1, Swapped follows Ollie, a small woodland creature known as a pookoo, and Ivy, a bird-like javan. Their species have been taught to fear and avoid one another as they compete for resources in the same wilderness.
After Ollie and Ivy accidentally come into contact with a magical pod, they awaken inside each other’s bodies. The unexpected transformation forces the two rivals to cooperate as they search for a way to reverse the accident and protect the valley they both call home.
The story uses its body-swapping premise to explore empathy and prejudice. By experiencing the world from the other character’s perspective, Ollie and Ivy gradually begin to question the hostility that has divided their communities.
Michael B. Jordan and Juno Temple Lead the Cast
Michael B. Jordan provides the voice of Ollie, while Juno Temple plays Ivy. The supporting voice cast includes Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, Justina Machado, Ambika Mod and Lolly Adefope.
The movie was directed by Nathan Greno, whose previous credits include Disney’s Tangled. Its screenplay was written by John Whittington alongside Christian Magalhães and Robert Snow. John Lasseter, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Mary Ellen Bauder Andrews served as producers.
Has Swapped Really Replaced KPop Demon Hunters?
Although Swapped surpassed KPop Demon Hunters in one specific category, it has not overtaken the musical fantasy’s overall performance.
Netflix calculates its official all-time popularity chart using the total number of views collected during a title’s first 91 days. On that list, KPop Demon Hunters remains firmly in first place with 325.1 million views. Swapped has entered the same ranking at number 10 with 139.8 million views.
The difference shows how the two movies found success in separate ways. Swapped experienced an enormous surge shortly after its debut, giving it the strongest individual week in Netflix animation history. KPop Demon Hunters, meanwhile, developed extraordinary staying power and continued attracting viewers long after its original June 2025 release.
For that reason, describing Swapped as a direct replacement may be premature. It has unquestionably become one of Netflix’s biggest animated releases, but KPop Demon Hunters still holds the platform’s more important long-term record.
Nevertheless, Swapped’s rapid rise demonstrates that Netflix can produce another widely watched original animated film without simply copying the musical action formula that made KPop Demon Hunters a global phenomenon.
I enjoyed watching it.