Angel Studios’ Sound of Freedom opened Tuesday, July 4, to an astonishing $11.6 million, which nearly topped the July 4 take of Disney’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Some caveats apply, all of them in Sound of Freedom’s favor… To begin with, Dial of Destiny played in 2,000 more theaters than Sound of Freedom. Second, and this is really something, Sound of Freedom sold $14.2 million worth of tickets Tuesday, which tops Dial of Destiny and makes the Christian-themed film America’s top 4th of July ticket seller.
A drama starring Jim Caviezel as a real-life rescuer of children from traffickers, grossed just under the day’s total for #IndianaJones, which played in almost 2,000 more theaters. https://t.co/gCF251x43D
— IndieWire (@IndieWire) July 5, 2023
The reason those “extra” ticket sales don’t officially count is because those tickets were not used. The additional sales were part of the movie’s “pay it forward” program, where people who enjoy the movie purchase a ticket for someone else. That’s some pretty smart marketing.
IndieWire points out this beauty…
In one day, “Freedom” grossed more the full domestic runs of recent awards contenders like “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “TAR,” and “Women Talking.” Its gross nearly doubles that of current independent hit “Past Lives.”
Sound of Freedom stars Jim Caviezel and Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino. Caviezel plays Tim Ballard, a real-life U.S. government agent who quit his job at Homeland Security to rescue children from drug cartels and sex traffickers in Latin America.
President Donald Trump, center, speaks as Kirstjen Nielsen, U.S. secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), and Timothy Ballard, founder and chief executive officer of Operation Underground Railroad, left, listen during a meeting about human trafficking on the southern border at the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 1, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Here’s where this box office story becomes even more glorious…
Sound of Freedom was produced in 2018, five full years ago, and 20th Century Fox acquired the distribution rights. But after Disney acquired Fox in early 2019, it shelved the movie. It then took the producers years to acquire the distribution rights back from Disney.
Angel Studios, the company behind the worldwide hit The Chosen, acquired Sound of Freedom in 2023, and it now owns what will almost certainly be the most profitable independent movie of the year — a movie that, in a single day, outgrossed the total gross of three of last year’s Oscar contenders.
So why would the Disney Grooming Syndicate dump a movie with a meager $15 million production budget starring a bankable star like Jim Caviezel and a full-blown Oscar winner like Mira Sorvino?
Easy answer… Under CEO Bob Iger, Disney became demonic, and today’s very different and morally corrupted Disney wants nothing to do with anything Christian. Secondly, the same Disney that is now so aggressively defending child groomers and engaging in grooming and sexualizing little kids likely wanted nothing to do with a movie that condemns child sex trafficking. Finally, look back at the political climate in 2019. Iger has made no secret of his desire to run for president as a Democrat, and no Democrat wants to be associated with a movie that appeals to MAGAChristianRedStateTards like me.
Ah, but the arc of history does bend toward justice, doesn’t it? The Disney Grooming Syndicate has released one money-losing flop after another. But Sound of Freedom will go on to make a nice, fat profit (Sound of Freedom is projected to gross anywhere from $20 to $28 million by Monday). Oh, and Sound of Freedom just handed Disney’s Dial of Destiny flop another humiliating headline.
The shareholders must be thrilled.
Between Sound of Freedom, The Chosen, His Only Son, and others, Angel Studios is achieving what Disney has lost: audience trust and goodwill. People are starting to see the Angel Studio brand as not only trustworthy when it comes to the kind of content they want, but also — and most importantly — the quality of that content (Sound of Freedom earned a rare A+ from CinemaScore). That special status is very difficult to earn and very easy to lose (just ask the child exploiters at Disney … or take a gander at the company’s stock price, lol).
Disney is evil, and Sound of Freedom is humiliating evil.
If you need me, I’ll be over here being happy.