Box office: How did ‘Sound of Freedom’ become the $85 million hit of the summer?

Edward Douglas
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This past weekend, a movie took second place at the box office with $27 million, surpassing two massive franchise sequels, but there were other reasons why it might turn some heads in Hollywood.

That movie was Angel Studios’ “Sound of Freedom,” a drama starring Jim Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ”) as government agent Tim Ballard, who gives up his job to go on dangerous missions to save children in third-world countries from sex trafficking. Co-written and directed by Alejandro Monteverde (“Little Boy”), the film co-stars Oscar winner Mira Sorvino and Bill Camp.

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Normally, an indie drama about a difficult topic would barely get released in more than a few hundred theaters, if that, but Angel Studios released “Sound of Freedom” wide with a brilliant marketing campaign to pay it forward in terms of buying tickets for others to see it.

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“Sound of Freedom” opened on the 4th of July Tuesday (another savvy marketing strategy) and grossed $14.2 million in 2,634 theaters, a pretty great start, but few thought it could hold up that business through the weekend, especially when it only made $4 million on Wednesday and even less on Thursday. In fact, it added another 300 theaters over the weekend and word-of-mouth drove its first weekend up to $19.7 million, with Saturday and Sunday making more than every day but Tuesday.

On Monday and Tuesday, before “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” opened, the movie returned to the #1 slot over “Insidious” and “Indiana Jones” sequels that had ranked above it over the weekend, and it maintained its $4 million-a-day leading up to the weekend. It ended up doing even better this past weekend with an estimated $27 million, up 37% from its previous weekend.

The fact that the movie made more its second weekend than the first is not something that happens very often, as Angel Studios’ Head of Theatrical Distribution Brandon Purdie noted. “There have only been 10 wide release movies in box office history that have had a 2nd weekend increase greater than 35% over their opening weekend,” he declared. “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.'”

As of Sunday, the movie has grossed $85 million, which is the best showing for an independent film in quite some time, even defeating last year’s Best Picture Oscar winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

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What’s also surprising is that reviews for the movie aren’t bad, currently at 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, whereas normally an inspirational or faith-based movie like this one would not find many fans among critics. The movie also seems to have found a lot of support from the right wing, adding to any controversy but also annoying the generally liberal critical pool.

The film also reviewed a very rare “A+” CinemaScore, something we’ve seen for movies like “Black Panther” and “The Help” and “Frozen,” and perhaps oddly, also Caviezel’s breakout film, “The Passion of the Christ,” showing that audiences absolutely adored the movie and more people were discovering it through word-of-mouth than traditional pre-opening marketing.

We’ll have to see how “Sound of Freedom” fares over the next week and especially over the coming weekend, but there’s little doubt that it can cross $100 million and keep going as counter-programming as long as it keeps being driven by word of mouth and an ingenious way of getting people to buy tickets for others.

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