He is the writer and director of the 2021 film Wish Dragon and the 2025 film KPop Demon Hunters, serving as co-director with Maggie Kang in the latter. He is also known for illustrating two children's books, A Greyhound, a Groundhog and Sparky!, the latter of which won the Children's Choice Book Award in 2015.
Early life and education
Appelhans was born in Firth, Idaho[3]:2:18 to Kristi and Anthony Appelhans.[1] At the age of four, the family moved to Idaho Falls, where he attended Taylorview Middle School and Idaho Falls High School.[1] Appelhans grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons, and enjoyed writing and storytelling. While he also liked drawing as a part of storytelling, he did not "think it was a passion" growing up.[3]
In his junior year of high school, he was encouraged to pursue visual art as a career by a family friend who taught at Ricks College, which had a feeder program with the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.[1][3] After graduating from high school in 1998, Appelhans studied illustration at the ArtCenter College of Design.[4][5] By the end of his studies, Appelhans became drawn to the idea of working on children's literature and film, saying that children "don't care who you are... at the end of the day, you would be a little more judged on the merits".[3]
Film career
Appelhans began his career in film as a character designer and concept artist on Monster House (2006);[1] he was hired after his online portfolio was discovered by Lucasfilm production designer Doug Chiang, who, despite having never met Appelhans, referred him to ImageMovers, one of the production companies working on Monster House.[3]
According to Appelhans, he continued to work as a production designer and artist for "seven or eight years" before realizing his strength and passion was in story writing.[6] Shortly after, he pitched a live-action film to the executives at ImageMovers, who bought the idea and, at the direction of owner Robert Zemeckis, hired Appelhans to write the screenplay.[3][6] The job was Appelhans' first foray into screenwriting, which he says was a learning experience and "wasn't particularly good".[6] By the time he had completed and submitted the screenplay, ImageMovers had ended their partnership with The Walt Disney Company and the project did not move forward.[3] In 2012, Appelhans' concept was announced to be the basis of Disney's "The Magic Catalogue", a sci-fi adventure film about a group of teens discovering a cache of high-tech weapons. The film was to be produced by Zemeckis' ImageMovers and written by Jason Fuchs.[7] In the following years, Appelhans sold and developed another screenplay for Laika, which was also not greenlit.[6] He described the time in the lead up to his first film as "six to eight years in the wilderness learning how to write – learning what a story was, learning how to construct a 90-minute feature and living through it."[6]
In 2018, Appelhans was announced as the director and writer of the animated film Wish Dragon for Sony Pictures Animation, in his writing and directorial debut.[8] The film is about a college student's encounter with a dragon who has the power to grant three wishes; it was based on his friendship with Michael Wu, a cousin of his colleague he met during a visit to China in 2014.[1][3]Wish Dragon was released theatrically in China on January 15, 2021, and on Netflix internationally on June 11, 2021.[9][10]
Following the production of Wish Dragon, its producer Aron Warner introduced Appelhans to Maggie Kang, who had first pitched Warner the idea that eventually became KPop Demon Hunters, an animated film about a K-pop girl group that hunts demons secretly.[11] Appelhans had also worked with Kang's husband, Radford Sechrist, on Wish Dragon.[6][12] According to Kang, she and Appelhans met over lunch and "bonded immediately";[12] Appelhans had planned on taking a break after Wish Dragon, but changed his mind after their initial conversation.[13] He stated that he "always wanted to do a film about the power of music—to unite, bring joy, build community".[14]KPop Demon Hunters was officially announced in April 2021 with Kang and Appelhans as co-writers and directors.[14] Production wrapped four years later in 2025, and the film was released on Netflix on June 20, 2025.[12]
Illustration career
Aside from his work in film, Appelhans has also illustrated children's books. His first book was Sparky! by Jenny Offill, which won the Children's Choice Book Award in 2015.[15] In 2017, he illustrated A Greyhound, a Groundhog, by Emily Jenkins.[16]
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