Crowdfund platform Angel Studios announced Sunday its July cumulative-to-date box office revenue for its true-life child trafficking thriller Sound of Freedom is projected to be over $85 million through Sunday with the anticipation of crossing the $100 million mark this week.
Angel Studios, which has also distributed the blockbuster faith series The Chosen, said Sound of Freedom, driven by its star Jim Caviezel, showed a $27 million box office draw in the second week of the film’s release in America since it opened July 4, and earned the top spot at the box office with the help of its Pay It Forward fans.
“While the entire summer movie box office lineup is underperforming, our small independent film continues to grow week over week,” Jared Geesey, senior vice president of Global Distribution at Angel Studios, said in a press statement. “Driven by millions of fans and supporters, Sound of Freedom has become a national—and soon international—movement for change.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiZgs7dyBZg&t=1s
Brandon Purdie, head of theatrical distribution for Angel Studios, explained the significance of the popularity of the film that exposes the sinister world of child trafficking and the heroic efforts of Tim Ballard, a former government agent who quit his job to rescue a little girl from sex traffickers in the Columbian jungle.
Ballard ultimately created Operation Underground Railroad, an organization that rescued over 120 victims, including children as young as 11 years old, during just one mission.
“There have only been ten wide release movies in box office history that have had a second weekend increase greater than 35% over their opening weekend,” Purdie said. “All of them did it at Christmas. Angel Studios is the only studio to do this in the summer blockbuster season with Sound of Freedom.”
Jordan Harmon, co-founder of VidAngel, recently joined Steve Bannon’s War Room after the film’s opening week success.
“I keep saying it’s astonishing work but miraculous outcomes because the amount of miracles it took to do this – I can’t even count them all,” Harmon said, elaborating:
The fact that we have almost 3,000 screens in the heart of the summer, like the most busy time. We are so grateful for our theatrical partners with AMC, and Regal, and Cinemark and all these different groups. They’ve stepped up to the plate, they’ve given us locations, and that’s what made this all possible. And, so, you know, as of right now, you know, we had that goal of let’s get two million people to represent the trafficked two million children every year and get as much awareness to this as possible. And we were absolutely blown away. We felt like we could hit that two million mark. And obviously, you know, Steve, you’ve been such a huge proponent this since we launched this initiative, but we hit two million by Friday. And we were like, holy smokes. This is, you know, it was like Friday, late evening, but we’re like, this is incredible.
Harmon said Sound of Freedom earned a 99 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes which, he noted, “is just unheard of,” as well as an A+ cinema score.
The announcements of the film’s success comes following attempts by left-wing media, including Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Jezebel, and The Guardian, to smear it by linking it to QAnon conspiracy theories.
“It’s been amazing to watch the audience step up to the plate and say no, this isn’t about all those things that you’re saying, this is about the children and this awareness is going to hopefully, like we said when we chatted a month ago, be the start of the end of this atrocity … this atrocity of child trafficking,” Harmon said.
– – –
Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Sound of Freedom” by Sound of Freedom.
