EXCLUSIVE: Sound of Freedom distributor Angel Studios says nearly 84% of the tickets furnished by “pay-it-forward” buyers who wanted other patrons to see the movie for free were ultimately redeemed. With Jim Caviezel starring as real-life anti-child-trafficking activist Tim Ballard, the film became a left-field box office smash in 2023, outdoing mega-budget Hollywood titles like
Sound of Freedom
I’m trying to stay optimistic. It takes some effort, as just about everyone seems to think the film business is a mess–strike-thinned schedule, cultural chaos, streaming models in flux. But, hey, the Golden Globes audience was up by half, never mind critical reaction to the show. There are still signs of life out there. So
The indie box office busted out this year, hitting is stride post-Covid with an eclectic string of releases that made a splash artistically and financially. Independents and mini-majors saw $1.47 billion in box office receipts as of Dec. 27, up from $811.7 million in 2022, according to Comscore. Focus Features had the biggest limited opening
The faith-based indie outfit behind summer blockbuster Sound of Freedom is out with documentary After Death, which opens in over 2,600 theaters this weekend, an extremely wide release for a doc that doesn’t also happen to be a concert film. The exploration of near-death experiences by survivors, scientists, medical professionals and authors that addresses the
Angel Studios, the outfit behind one of summer’s biggest hits, Sound of Freedom, will release its next film and first original, The Shift, in theaters Dec. 1. The sci-fi thriller stars Neal McDonough (Yellowstone, Minority Report), Sean Astin (Stranger Things, The Lord of the Rings), Kristoffer Polaha (Wonder Woman, 1984, Mad Men), Liz Tabish (The
This summer’s box office is set to hit $4 billion for the 13th time ever, +16% over last summer. Barbie and Oppenheimer, which together rep 22% of that figure created a blast radius, finally bringing infrequent moviegoers back to cinemas after Covid sidelined audiences. However, with the ongoing strikes set to upset both the production
Editor’s note: Dade Hayes and Jonathan Bing are co-authors of Open Wide: How Hollywood Box-Office Became a National Obsession. Hayes is Deadline’s Business Editor and Bing is Chief Communications Officer at Vice Media Group. The more things change, the more the Hollywood studios stay the same. At least that’s one of the surprising lessons of
Angel Studios, the distributor behind Alejandro Monteverde’s summer surprise hit, Sound of Freedom, is exclaiming that they’ve paid back their 6,678 P&A investors 120% of their original investment in the Jim Caviezel movie. Angel Studios raised $5M for the pic’s marketing through crowdfunding, the anti-child trafficking movie recently clicking past $174M in the middle of
EXCLUSIVE: There was a lot of noise surrounding the red state-beloved, $163M-grossing summer surprise hit, Sound of Freedom, this morning with Newsweek reporting that one of the pic’s 6,678 crowdfunders was arrested for child kidnapping by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police. Now just to be clear, we’re talking one person who contributed an unidentified amount
Not streaming, nor strikes, nor shell shock from the pandemic kept this July’s domestic box office down with studio tentpoles and a faith-based surprise movie racking up the second-best record for the month with $1.37 billion per Comscore. Warner Bros’ Barbie and Universal’s Oppenheimer were the No. 1 and 2 movies with $366.4M and $181.4M
It was a magnificent movie weekend. Barbie, Oppenheimer, Sound of Freedom. All hits, a blow-out! So what else have you got? The question sounds obnoxious, like its near-cousin, the always infuriating: “What have you done for me lately?” But it’s an honest query, and an important one for a strike-bound, streaming-bent, pandemic-emergent industry that is
What was it W. B. Yeats wrote, that line Joan Didion lifted and twisted in her essay “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” about West Coast chaos in 1967? Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. That’s how it felt on Thursday, a few minutes before lunch with some seasoned film executive-friends at the Academy Museum (Salad Niçoise
SATURDAY PM UPDATE: Facts are facts, and Paramount/Skydance’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One set a 5-day opening domestic record for the franchise with $80M, we hear. Previous best 5-day opening belonged to 2000’s Mission: Impossible II which cleared a Wednesday-Sunday take over Memorial Day weekend of $78.8M. The 3-day record still belongs to
Sony/Stage 6 Films/Blumhouse’s Insidious: The Red Door may have stolen No. 1 away from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the weekend box office, but Angel Studios’ indie wonder Sound of Freedom won Monday with an estimated $4 million. All of this before Paramount/Skydance’s Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One takes all
UPDATE, 2:20PM: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny officially wins Tuesday with $11.698M over Sound of Freedom‘s reported $11.5M. Monday revised on Dial of Destiny was $11.7M, which means business was even on July 4th; and that’s solid for any tentpole on that holiday. 5-day on Dial of Destiny is $83.7M. PREVIOUS: Angels
UPDATED EXCLUSIVE: Angel Studios’ thriller Sound of Freedom starring Jim Caviezel has seen its presales spike to $10 million. This is before the pic’s opening on July 4 in north of 2,600 locations. Many rivals are tracking this semi-faith-based, based-on-a-true-story title about about former Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard, who took rescuing abducted children around
EXCLUSIVE: We all know post-pandemic that tentpoles work at the box office, but it’s been hit and miss for everything else, especially indies movies. From out of nowhere, Angel Studios’ Sound of Freedom movie about Tim Ballard, a former Homeland Security agent who left the department after he was frustrated with the U.S. rescue efforts