How 2023’s Oddest Box Office Hit ‘Paid It Forward’
Episode Notes
Transcript
Some backstory to this episode: last month I bought a ticket for Sound of Freedom because I was curious about the year’s most unexpected box office sensation. As the credits rolled, star Jim Caviezel came on the screen and gave a speech to the audience about the importance of theatrical exhibition; it’s the sort of thing you typically see at the start of movies these days, actors and directors thanking audiences for coming to the theater. Here’s the wrinkle: during his speech, Caviezel tells audience members they can “pay it forward,” buy a ticket for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to go. When the QR code allowing audiences to do this came on the screen, a woman who had lingered by the exit when she heard Caviezel talking pulled out her phone, scanned the code, and bought a ticket.
I’ve never seen anything like that in a movie theater. Ever. So I asked Jeffrey Harmon, Angel Studios’s Chief Content Officer, on the show to talk about his studio’s unique business model, how they decide what to fund, and whether or not the pay-it-forward model could work for other types of movies like civil rights dramas. We discussed how the pay-it-forward system impacts the box office (briefly: only tickets that are requested and redeemed count toward the total, which as of this writing stands at $156 million domestic) and what their plans are for international distribution.
As always, if you learned something, I hope you share this episode with a friend.
Finally: I know there’s a lot of controversy swirling around this movie. For reasons I lay out here, I think it’s a fairly serious misstep to describe this as “the QAnon movie,” though I understand why some have misgivings given Jim Caviezel’s statements in the past. But this episode is about the film’s box office business, and as such I hewed pretty closely to that topic. If you’re not interested in that aspect of Sound of Freedom, I understand, but I’d ask you to keep comments on topic if you’d like to discuss this week’s episode.
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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
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Welcome back to the Board goes to Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch from ultra editor at the Bulwark. And I’m very pleased to be joined today by Jeffrey Harmon. Now Jeffrey is the co founder and chief content officer at Angel Studios. He co founded Orober Brush Inc in two thousand nine, served as a CEO there.
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But we’re we’re here to talk about, the biggest box office success of the summer, I think, or at least the most surprising box office success of the summer. I think the the the movie that if you had, you know, pulled up a chart and you were you were putting your, fantasy box office draft together. I don’t know that sound of freedom would have been at the top of most people’s list, but it is, at least in terms of return on investment aiming to be one of the biggest grossing movies of the year, but most successful movies of the year. And it has a really interesting kind of backstory and business model and there’s lots to to discuss here. Jeffrey, thanks for being on the show.
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I really appreciate it.
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Yeah. Thanks for having me.
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So let’s let’s talk about
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how you guys finance, and fund and find the audience for these movies? Because I think this is a super interesting business model that, a lot of people don’t understand. I I I tweet Jonathan Last. I tweet constantly, but I tweet about box office stuff. And anytime I tweet about sound of freedom, I get a lot of questions about like, well, you know, is this success real?
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Is it astroturfed? Blah blah blah. And that does not track with what I’m hearing from exhibitors, most of whom, are not reporting, you know, my massive empty audio auditorium. They they say they’re full and, have people show up. But I I wanna I wanna explain to people how this works.
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So sound of freedom. How do you guys decide, to make this movie in the first place? What’s what’s the, what’s the process there like for deciding that sound of freedom is going to be an Angel Studios picture.
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Well, the first the first step is we have what’s called the Angel Guild. And so Angel Studios is a disruptor. In the Hollywood space because we’ve rebuilt the entire over the last ten years, we’ve rebuilt the entire system from the ground up to go around Hollywood system. It’s a we’re doing it outside of the system. And so the first the first step is we have what’s called the Angel Guild.
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And the Angel Guild is a hundred thousand Angel investors, but that are regular people that could have invested just down to a hundred bucks or even fifty dollars into a project. And they are stakeholders inside of the angel network. And what each every week, we get sixty plus filmmakers submitting to Angel Studios. Submitting projects. They’ll submit full movies.
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They’ll submit prototype movies. Pilots for TV series, animatics. They’re they’re submitting all kinds of things. Those anything that qualifies goes into the Angel Guild for review. And the Angel Guild is this hundred thousand everyday people who go in and review the content, and they ask them, they get asked two questions.
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If you watch a movie like Sound of Freedom, they watch Sound of Freedom, And they they ask them, they get asked. Number one, does this project amplify light? So the the question is, will what does this project like, we don’t want nihilistic content. We don’t want there there’s a certain type of certain brand of content we want, which is family safe. And it amplifies light.
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It does it it changes people for better after seeing the content. They have very little, like, time regretted is really small after watching our content. They don’t they don’t regret the time they spent watching it. So it does this amplify light? They get yes, no.
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And then the second question they get asked after they watch a, a submission is the guild gets asked. How would you feel if this was never turned into an Angel Studios original? Or how would you feel if this never went to theaters with Angel Studios? Those types of questions. And they get asked they get three answers.
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One is very disappointed. Number two is somewhat disappointed. Number three is not disappointed. It’s not that good. And so this this question forces them to ask the question for themselves.
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Because if you ask a customer, what do you think about this movie? They’re gonna start saying, well, what do I think about other people think about this movie. That’s what critics try to do usually is they’re trying to say, what what is the, what’s the world gonna think about this movie? And what we want them to answer what do I personally think of this movie? How would I feel if this was never turned into a film or into an angel re original series?
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And then the very top ones, every month, the very that the top guild selections are the ones that we go in and we, turn into angel Angel Studios series or Angel Studios movies, and the sound of freedom scored near the top of anything we’ve ever had submitted. We’ve also had some others that are very good. And there’s some that are coming that are very high. Like, the movie Cabini has scored super high in the guilt or the movie after death, which is coming in October, that one has scored crazy high on the on the guilt. And and so for the first things we’ve learned about this, just to see on this, and then I’ll get to the the crowd funding aspect, is that The Angel Guild basically gives us a preview of what the rotten tomatoes score is gonna look like.
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Because we have a hundred thousand people that are from all over the world scoring these films and advance in a private setting. And then we get a preview. The filmmaker gets a preview of what the audience actually thinks of the movie before it comes out. And in the
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interrupt here for one question. So when you say so you said there there’s a hundred thousand people in this angel guild. You you basically have a one hundred thousand person strong focus for each of these movies before. That’s I mean, that’s pretty impressive. That’s crazy.
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Yeah. Yeah. So I know everybody rates every single movie, but it’s a hundred thousand people that are co that are actively going in in ratings content. And I mean, with sixty filmmakers a week, not all one hundred thousand can watch sixty different projects or whatever. But they’re all they’re all watching some, and then we get to statistical significance.
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So then, then you you go and you take the ones that are the winners and they do with a movie release, a theater release, theatrical release, we do we crowd fund the P and A. So print and advertising for those who don’t know what P and A the prince comes from the terminology, back when movies were, on film. You’d send out a role, a printed roll of film to all the different theaters, and that was the cost of the prints. Now it’s just sending out posters and hard drives or, a file through the internet. But but prints and advertising, that’s what it means.
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So The prints in advertising are paid for by everyday investors who come in and they crowd fund. Instead of going to big loan or a bank, you crowd fund a loan for the P and A or a, a a profit share of the project. And then they can get up to a hundred and twenty percent back on their investment. And this has happened, the his only son has already returned a hundred and twenty percent to its investors that invested in it in in March is when we did his only son. That was a number three box office release at Easter.
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And then sound of freedom will return it very soon. As soon as all the the just the process get done, and then they’ll have a hundred and twenty percent on their investment that they put in. So there were seven thousand around seven thousand investors that that put in five million dollars of P and A to get sound of freedom off into theaters. That’s a small P and A budget compared to a hundred million dollar a hundred million dollars for Indiana Jones or something, but but we know how to how to spend that efficiently and get a return on investment for those, for the crowd. Then the the reason why this is a big deal is if you take the P and A money and the crowd raises it, the crowd actually, like, the the angel guild who’s investing in these projects.
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They once they’re invested, they’re gonna show up to the theaters, and they’re gonna bring all their friends to the So your initial you have a, you know, a seven, ten thousand army of people, because each each one of each investor represents a family or, you know, a group of people. And you’ve got this multi, multi thousand person army out dragging all their friends and neighbors to the movie because now they’re they’re a stakeholder.
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I mean, it the the thing that most obviously calls to mind, of course, is something like Kickstarter, right, where you you, contribute to get something created. And then when you get it, you share it, and people are like, oh, that’s pretty cool. I I want want — Mhmm. — wants something.
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Yeah. And I think I think the motivation’s the same as Kickstarter. Meaning that you’re you’re you’re you want something to exist. You want this film to exist. You want this movie to exist.
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You want it to be in theaters and so you’re helping. But the reward is better than in Kickstarter because you can actually get it. Like, if I put in a thousand dollars, I can get twelve hundred dollars back in a few months if the movie is successful. Right? I can get one hundred and twenty percent of what I did.
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And so there’s there’s an extra extra element of, strength to to this versus a good start.
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No. I remember, a few years back. The, the the broken lizard guys were trying to do this with, I I have super trooper two or something. But that was for the whole the whole project. It was, you know, it was they were they were they were looking for equity.
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And there are people to do that. Like, there there’s a movie that in post production right now called the Shift. And the filmmaker for the Shift Brockley from California, Fresno. He built he’s a comic book writer. He he did comic books, and he decided he was gonna get into directing.
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He direct a short film that was like twelve minutes long. He made it for five hundred bucks calling him favors from friends. But the storytelling was so good in this that he was able to use that to raise, eventually he released, like, an audio script of his, of his entire movie. He did an, like, an audiobook version essentially of his entire movie, released it to the Angel Guild into the crowd, And between that, and then he did an animatic of his movie. He did a bunch of stuff that he kinda needs to do in pre production anyway, and and was honing it.
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Over a period of time, he raised he did a he got six point five million dollars in investment for this film in got Sean Sean’s part of it from Lord of the Rings and stranger things, and you got Neil McDonough from band of brothers. Who plays the the the benefactor who’s the the the the evil, you know, the the bad guy. And then you’ve got, And then you’ve got Liz Tabish, who’s the star and the chosen, and and Paris Patel, who’s also a star in the chosen. So you have these these different he he this first time filmmaker was able to take his script and just keep building on itself. He built and he crowdfunded and built a following where he now has a six point five million dollar movie that’s ready getting ready for theaters right now that, you can see the trailer if you go on YouTube and just search for the Shift trailer.
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But the this movie is, I mean, he’s leapfrogged. Most directors are are spending years and years and years knocking down studios doors begging for money, and he just went straight to the crowd. And with the angel model and then raised, enough to do a six point five million dollars.
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Did he do the fundraising through your guys’ platform?
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Yeah. He did it through the Angel Funding platform, which is a a it’s a it’s a different company, but it’s it licenses our name. But Angel Funding is a is a form that does SCC regulated crowd funding.
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Let me let me ask the, it’s it’s funny because I saw the I saw the trailer for the shift before I saw a sound of freedom, and I it was the first time I’d I’d seen it. And, it it was it was it was I was a little surprised that you guys were making what looks like kind of like a multiverse movie?
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That’s sci fi. Yeah. Yeah. It’s sci fi. I mean, it has a it has some some, elements that make it very unique.
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It’s it’s a, it’s this one, in particular, is based on story of Job. But those kind of stories are timeless, meaning it can be in a sci fi version of a person losing everything to an enemy that’s trying to break them, you know, that it’s but this one’s done through a multiverse system. It’s a it’s an allegory.
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Mean, it it is interesting. Again, I, you know, I when I went to c Sound of Freedom, I was expecting, I was expecting it to be a little more heavy handed on the the the the religious angle because everyone, you know, I described this movie as, you know, oh, it’s the Christian film from Yeah.
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It got labeled. Right.
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And And
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then it it I think I think competition, like, we’ve got, we’re a little theater coming up in a gigantic space. A a little a little studio coming up in a gigantic space. And they’ve got, you know, a kind of an oligop It’s not monopoly, but it’s multiple big parties that kinda run the whole show. And we’re coming up outside of that system. And so immediately, once once they saw it first, they ignore you, then they mock you, then they laugh at you, or then they fight you, then you win.
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And we’re we kinda entered this, this this mocking fighting stage where there’s all kinds of labels They try to label the movie just to see if they can throw friction in the gears to keep the movie from spreading. And that they’re not they’re not real labels, but they have big enough microphones that they were that people were very confused when they went to the movie, and they’re why don’t these labels apply to this movie? And it’s because labels just flat out weren’t true.
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Well, let’s I let’s discuss one of those labels because I mean, I this is, a a thing. I I, again, get a lot from people when I mentioned Sound of Freedom, when I’m just tweeting about the box offices, oh, the, you know, the QAnon movie. So I I I want I I I feel like I have to ask, you know, how do you guys respond to the suggestions that this is a movie that appeals to conspiracy theorists and, you know, cultists and and, that sort of thing.
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Yeah. I mean, it’s it it just makes me laugh. There’s, There the there you’ve got this really big industry that’s trying to slow down this movie. Everybody who’s seen this movie knows it has nothing to do with conspiracy theories. There’s a really great youtuber called shoe on head, shoe on head.
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And she does this review that has, like, six hundred thousand views in the last week or something. And, and she just, just goes through and she’s just like, I want my money back. Where was the conspiracy theory movie that I was promised by the media? This is just a normal good movie. That’s about a guy who saves kids from sex traffickers.
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And she’s just, where is where’s my where’s my, where’s the story that the media told me not to watch this for, and then why I went to watch it. She said I went to watch it just to see all those crazy conspiracies. And she’s like, it’s just a normal movie. And and that’s the case across the board. Like, everybody who’s seen this movie knows that it has nothing to do with conspiracy theories.
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And and if you’re on the fence, you’re wondering, get a free ticket at angel dot com slash free tickets. There’s a pool of free tickets that other people have bought for you that they want you to see this movie. And go watch the movie. Angel dot com slash free tickets, go get a free ticket. I don’t feel bad about using a free ticket to go watch the movie.
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And, and you’ll you can decide for yourself. I I it it’s, it labels are the way that you normally slow something down, especially if they don’t have a big enough megaphone or microphone, But, you know, I think I think there’s four different reasons why those conspiracy theory ideas have circulated. She went ahead. She says at the like, towards the middle of the video, she’s going through this process. And she’s not, like, by no means a conservative.
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I mean, clearly not when you’re watching the the the the the video. And what’s really interesting is newsweek just did a poll on this movie And they found out that Republicans are, like, sixty something percent and Democrats are, like, six points less than Republicans on this film. Meaning, they’re almost equal. The the the the net In terms of Democrats love them. I’m sorry.
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In terms of approval, like, thumbs up thumbs down.
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Or thumbs up, thumbs down, and viewership. Democrats are showing up at, equal, almost equal rates is barely less. And they’re loving the movie just as much as the other side. The the the narrative just isn’t holding. It’s not holding water.
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What? And Go ahead.
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Well, this is I whenever again, I’ve had a couple of these conversations. And I tell people, like, look, this is a pretty straightforward movie about the evils of child pornography and sex trafficking. And I would very strongly recommend against suggesting that this is what QAnon is because if you start telling them that, they’re gonna be like, well, what else is this?
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It actually legitimizes the the this these crazy ideas. Right? It it it legitimizes something Because the movie’s so legit, trying to label it as some conspiracy theory actually legitimizes conspiracy theories.
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Which is a bad thing. We don’t wanna do Yeah. Alright. So let’s, let let’s talk about the the the free ticket situation here because alright. So, you know, we’re looking at we look at the box office.
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It’s a hundred and fifty two billion, I think, so far. With the the most up to date numbers. By the time this goes up, it’ll be a little more than that, because this this post on Saturday. But the, the The the numbers here are amazing. I, like, just I I this is objectively objectively, not not a, you know, this is not my opinion.
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I think it’s like the third or fourth largest independent film of all time.
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Huge huge numbers. And whenever, again, I mentioned them that you will get a contingent of people will say, well, How are we supposed to know, you know, how many of those ticket sales are real? What percent are, you know, blocks sold to church groups and with empty theaters and blah. So let’s let’s just talk about the actual mechanics of how the box office is calculated. My understanding from from your website and from talking to a few people is that the only, time that a one of the pay it forward tickets is accounted against the box office gross is when it’s redeemed by somebody on your website.
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Is that right?
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So if you when you when you go to get a pay it forward, so so let me just walk you through a customer’s point of view. You go to angel dot com slash free tickets. You sign up for a free ticket, you put your email in. You get a you get a code. That code’s good for a few days.
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And you can go then to Adam tickets as an as as an individual. You have to create an account, and you can only get two tickets or one ticket depending on how the supply and demand is, per person. And then you go to Adam tickets and it will only Bulwark that that that code will only work for a few days and only works for sound of freedom. And so you go in and you well, Adam tickets is one way. Sometimes you’ll get a ticket to Fandango.
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Sometimes, you know, it just depends on which theaters and there’s a lot of different partnerships we have built out for this. And so, and then you go and you redeem your code when you check out and that code is then used to buy your ticket. Does that make sense? So you’re you’re actually redeeming your ticket directly with the theaters, not, we’re we’re just giving you a code — Sure.
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—
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to go redeem your ticket.
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So so let me ex
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That’s when that’s when you get a seat. Is when you redeem that code.
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Okay. Well, let me let me explain, how what I saw at the theater when I when I saw it. So I I’m at the theater, credit start rolling, and then after a minute or so, Jim Kavizal comes on the screen, and he starts talking about the importance of seeing it in theaters. And a woman who had been walking out of the theater literally stopped and turned around and looked at him and what and listened to his speech about the again, the importance of seeing movies and theaters, you know, that we think everybody should have a chance to see this cost should not be a barrier. If you can’t, if if you enjoyed what you saw and you wanna help somebody else who can’t afford, see the movie, to see it, scan this QR code QR code comes up, and you can pay it forward.
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You can you can buy a ticket for somebody. She literally she pulls out her camera and as best as tell from, you know, two or three rows back. Literally right there in the theater bought a ticket for somebody. And that that was something I’d never seen never seen anything like that for. That that was crazy to me.
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Yep. So alright.
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So so let me so let me just see if I
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under so that money so the money that she paid for that ticket let’s just say, assume she bought one ticket, you know, ten bucks or whatever whatever the average cost is. That goes to that goes to basically a a big pool And then when somebody goes to your website and asks for a ticket, they get a code that is paid for out of that pool. And then when they redeem that code, at Adam tickets or Fending or wherever whichever theater. It’s only then that the money is counted toward the overall box office take. Is that right?
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So when when they that’s when they get a seat. That money isn’t actually, like, if you get a code and you don’t use it. Like, I saw somebody saying, oh, look at all these codes I got. They didn’t understand it. Like, if they don’t go to Adam, which has tons of anti bot stuff, in our system has anti bot stuff.
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Then if they’d actually don’t go use the code, then it never buys a scene. And so, and then as a viewer, as the person who buys the you actually get a dashboard that shows this person and this place used it, and this person and this place, like, you get you get a dashboard that shows where the codes went two so that you know how many codes went out for your your purchase.
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Interesting. And and again, just to, like, clarify for folks because I I get a lot of questions about this. It the the it when that when that lady in the theater, did the pay it forward, that’s not what counts towards the hundred fifty two million so far. Is that right?
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No. That doesn’t. That’s not how that’s not how the There’s a there’s a the way that the box office is calculated is done by a different team. That’s not me. But they work with Comscore and they work out how that all happens.
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And so I I don’t have, like but they’re they’re much smarter at that than than I am. But, yes, the the the, like, there will be pay it forwards that actually end up not in the US box office, but, like, go to There’ll be some that end up going to Mexico box office or to other countries box offices to help people see this movie around the world.
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When when are you guys rolling out around the world?
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So August thirty first, we have, most of Latin America, I think it’s August thirty first. There’s a blog post on this. If you go to angel dot com slash blog, you’ll see all the updates. But, there’s a roll out across Mexican across Latin America, except for Brazil, which will be in September. In in August.
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And, and then the UK is coming out very soon. Mean, I can’t even keep up. There’s so many. It’s on angel dot com slash blog. There’s all the release dates.
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And, what’s crazy is so my wife’s Brazilian, and I speak Portuguese, and we we spend a lot of time in Brazil. And the biggest influencers in Brazil are already all arguing about this movie, even though they haven’t even seen it yet. It’s just like, It’s already like gigantic arguments about they’re reading the American reviews and then they’re all taking sides of which which side of the the this, like, these the the the the controversy are they on.
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Mhmm. I that, somebody who is familiar in the United States with people with critics seeing movies at festivals and then them not coming out for months and months. I am used to that sort of argument that is a that’s in a it’s always it’s always funny to get wrapped up in those. Let me let me ask, are you handling the distribution in all the foreign territories? You know, so to explain for some —
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Yeah.
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— some folks who don’t understand, you know, a lot of the times, a studio will sell the right, especially independent studios will sell the foreign rights to to cover production costs or other things. But are you guys handling the the distribution rights around the world?
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So Angel Studios has direct relationship with theaters all over the world. There are areas where we don’t have direct relationships, and we use, a third party. But our goal is to have as many direct relationships as possible. So we do all of US, Canada, almost the entire scope of Latin America and many other countries where we’re just direct with the theaters. Mhmm.
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And that when a filmmaker comes to us, theaters, the the distributors aren’t coming and taking twenty percent off the top before we take our cut and then or they take their cut and we take our cut. And our the angel model actually, we’re at the bottom of the waterfall with the filmmaker. We don’t we don’t take a distribution fee off the top, like most distributors. We believe that it did you can know how much a distributor believes in your content by how big their distribution fee is. Bigger the distribution fee, the less they believe in the content.
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Because they don’t expect to have profits at the bottom of the of the waterfall.
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Yeah. Well, that the the the whole the economics of distribution. That’s our topic for another podcast. I could do, you know, we could do an hour on that.
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Yeah. Yeah. We could we could dive into that, which we’re we’re, like, just just top line. Angel Studios, we’ve had it reviewed by many third parties that are major finance guys in in the Hollywood system. And they have said Angel Studios pays out on a successful film pays out more money than any other distributor in the world.
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And Angel Studios, they said they told us they said, if you don’t pick winners, your model won’t work.
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Mhmm. Mhmm.
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They’re they’re we’re a new studio, and they’re like, so you guys have to have a ton of confidence in the angel guild to pick the winners. Or else your model’s not gonna work because you’re not taking the fees that everybody else takes at the top, and you’re only taking when the projects win.
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Yeah. Man, I have so many questions. The the in in terms of the the relationships, with the theaters, you know, I I there there you guys you guys tweeted out something because some people were complaining, oh, the air conditioners aren’t working at the AMCs, you know, like, the but you guys were like, look, AMC has been great to us. We we we have a great working relationship with AMC. It’s, you know, it’s not their fault.
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We have great working relationship with all the exhibitors. We’re we’re very close to
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Well, how did you guys
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so how do I mean, how could you could you talk a little bit about how that that came together because, I mean, I I imagine that, you know, theaters are wary about, you know, getting involved with with independent distributors and studios, they don’t know — Yeah. — sure how it’s gonna Bulwark. You know?
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So we did our first two theatrical releases with Fathom events.
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Mhmm.
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So we did a chosen Christmas Christmas episode a couple years ago, and then we did episodes one and two of the chosen season three.
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Mhmm.
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Chosen for those who don’t know is a massive top five in the world TV series that’s been viewed by over probably a hundred and somewhere between a hundred and thirty and a hundred and fifty million people worldwide. And that’s a an angel original project. And so we did their their the those two theatrical releases with Fathom, And fathom, we said, hey, we have a huge following. Like, this is a massive font. You gotta get as many theaters as you can.
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Write out the game as many show times as you can. And they said, no, we understand our model. And then we sold them out. I think on that first one, we We completely crashed their website and everything was sold out within a day. And, just I mean, they couldn’t keep up with the cells.
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That that first theatrical release did. I don’t remember his twelve or fifteen million dollars. Second one did another same same kind of range. And, we we quickly realized that fathom’s really good for event cinema. Like, they’re amazing.
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They’re a great partner. But when a movie actually takes off beyond the event cinema, they they they they they they they they didn’t Bulwark. It didn’t work for us quite right. And so we said, well, we we’ve just gotta go direct to the theaters so that we can get, get the theaters, the kind of margins they need in order to give us the seats that we need when we have a breakout.
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Mhmm.
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And so with his only son, we switched and went direct to the theaters. And because we had they had seen this this momentum that are, the Angel Studios community drives that they said, okay. Well, let’s go ahead and do this as an experiment with his only son. And we took his only son and put it to number three in the box office, and it had a twelve million dollar run. On a very low budget film that’s very, very well done.
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It’s beautiful cinematic film. The filmmaker did, I mean, it’s it’s stunningly beautiful. It’s probably I think it’s the only faith, like, modern faith based film that has a both a positive rotten tomatoes score from the critics and from the viewers. That rarely rarely happens in in in any faith based, but it’s the story of Abraham. And you’re just in the wilderness with Abraham for three days with his thoughts as he’s trying to figure out what he’s gonna do when he sacrifice Isaac.
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So it’s a very, like, meditative, deep contemplative film has to be seen in theaters. You have to give up all your distractions to enjoy a movie like that. And, and so this this one blew up. And then because of that, we had the ability to take the next step and say, Alright. That was successful.
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Now we got sound of freedom. Let’s go for July fourth, which was the theater is actually at first. We’re like, I don’t know if you should do that. And and then they watch the movie, and then I think AMC was one of the first to say, you know what? This is this is something that we think will work.
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Yeah. And they jumped on board. And so did Cinemark and so did Regal, and the independence took a little bit longer, but they they all came on board. And then the ticket sells I mean, if you see the first week is big, but it was just capped out. You couldn’t we couldn’t sell enough tickets because there weren’t seats up against Indiana Jones.
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Mhmm.
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And then once they saw that they were selling out everything, then they were like, okay. Let’s move to the bigger auditoriums. And then and then we we really crushed it until, Barbenheimer was the first one to actually kinda, like, take us off the the the track a little bit.
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I mean, that’s, you know, that’s that’s crushing everybody.
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The the well, I mean,
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the other the other thing that’s been really interesting, just watching the box office numbers Again, daily, which I do, because I’m a nerd. The the the the the the weekday numbers have been amazing for, sound sound of freedom. I mean, I we’re I like, we’re, you know, we’re still talking about two million dollars a day or so. And the only other movies that are putting up numbers like that Barvey Garden and Oppenheimer, of course. But even, like, I think Mission Impossible’s, under a million now you know, it’s it’s it’s, it’s crazy.
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The the week I
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think that’s happening. I think that’s happening because the auditoriums aren’t big enough because Barbenheimer’s so big, the auditoriums aren’t big enough to give the supply that’s needed for the audience on the weekends. And so it’s pushing the demand out into the weekdays. It’s forcing people to say, you know, I don’t wanna wait another week or don’t I don’t wanna go fight the crowds on the weekends. So I’m gonna go on a weekday.
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And, and it’s the only time and even on weekdays, at the prime times of each weekday, those are sold out too. So it’s pushing out into even, like, matinees, and people are just taking making time to watch the movie because their friends are telling them about it. Or, like, I a live stream with Ellen where everybody was commenting in Ellen. Like, you need to go see Sound of Freedom, you know, like, the the the the fans are really, really adamant that everybody needs to watch this movie.
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Yeah. I it it’s, I again, it was it was interesting reading, one of a guest on this show before Ryan Fonder, at LA Times interviewed a a, a operator of a midsize chain in the Midwest. And he asked about he asked about sound of freedom. And, you know, like, there’s, you know, people people on Twitter talking about empty auditoriums and whatever. And the guy was like, no, look, I’ve had my I’ve had my employees in there doing spot checks to make sure, you know, that’s that’s not the case.
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And they’re, you know, the the theaters are full and
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honestly, I think I think those is there there’s a there’s these sparse, very few examples other than a I think there’s a few fraudsters that, like, go and they take a picture of a showtime that looks full and then they go and they they’re just trying to make make up controversy. But other than that, what what usually happens is you’ve got a lot of businesses like the the there’s a lot of businesses that are buying tickets like a group group set of tickets for their their employees. And if they don’t market that well enough inside their company, which happens sometimes if a — Mhmm.
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—
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CEO or somebody says, hey, let’s go everybody go to this movie. And then they turn it over to somebody who doesn’t care, and then people just maybe in some circumstances, there’s a big block of tickets where that business didn’t get a turnout. That’s that’s the normal, it’s completely normal for for a a film that has a lot of group purchases happening from businesses all over the country or
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— Yeah. —
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or groups of any kind. Do you
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have a sense of what percentage or group purchases? Or
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It it’s so tiny. I don’t. I we we don’t even I mean, it would it’s so small that I don’t have the number in front of me, but it’s it’s not it’s not gigantic. It’s it but it’s enough that there will be some examples. Right?
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And if those are all amplified, then it it’s like it’s like the air conditioning thing. It was a heat wave. There were theaters that literally because the the box office is just haven’t been that big since the pandemic. D there are theaters that hadn’t opened up certain auditoriums until this summer. And so they open them up, and then they haven’t been maintained properly.
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There’s a heat wave, and then the AC goes down. And so so there was probably more than normal AC units going down across the country. And we’re the one that’s coming up from the bottom. So they’re like, hey, we need to open a new theater for sound of freedom. You know, this is this is my layman’s explanation of what what what what happened there.
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And and so they they they have that. There there have been some, like, if you go to the original launch day Reddit threads, there are some, like, partisan employees of theaters. So there could be a few things going on where the guy’s the the the you got some hard core is coming to the theater that are really concerned. They’ve seen these rumors online, and they’re they’re getting upset and then the employees are already, like, I don’t agree with this person’s politics and then they kinda collude to create. Controversy that just doesn’t exist, you know?
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Like, they’re they’re almost like it’s like a cycle. So I I, but the it’s just it’s just a heat wave. It’s actually a really good sign for theaters that they they have to open up these auditoriums. It’s, like, this is these last couple weeks have been the biggest and in since the pandemic.
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So Yeah. I mean, last weekend was the biggest final July in the history of the box office Now, I mean, granted a lot of that is, you know, Barbie and Oppenheimer, but, I mean, yeah, having an extra, you know, fifteen million on the fourth or fifth weekend or whatever of, sound of freedom helps. Alright. So let’s
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And and it Will Saletan if you if you look at, like, Rolling Stone, one of the Rolling Stone writers went on, and he asked, Hey, I just wanna know how are you seeing theaters? He he went on a Reddit thread that just has theater owners and theater employees. And said, what what what are you seeing on the ground? And almost universally, it was my theaters are packed. This has saved my summer.
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It’s not like there were theater owners are saying Sound of Freedom saved my summer. And, he deleted the thread after, I I think he was looking for different types of comments. But, You can I tweeted out a copy, a link to the thread and some pictures of it? But but he, yeah, he he he just learned from the theater owners that this is this is a real hefty movement with this this release.
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Yeah. Let me so again, the the thing that in my mind after seeing this movie is the woman at the end who literally paid it forward in the theater. I, like, a, like, little smoke puff out of my head blew my mind. Does the do you think that that kind of model will work for, for movies, for for Don Angel Studios movies, right? Is there is there is that the sort of thing that, you know, civil rights pictures could, could could champion.
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I mean, I I’m, like, I I’m trying to think of how to expand this beyond because, like, I’m not gonna nobody’s gonna buy a ticket to pay it forward for the new transformers movie. Or, you know, the new, the new big blockbuster, whatever. Right? But, like, other movies that create that kind of sense of mission and purpose,
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Yeah. I think so. I think absolutely. I think it will work. It will work at different levels depending on Yeah.
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I think a civil rights movie. I mean, we’ve got some some content coming that’s down that vein. The I movement based movies that uplift people and inspire people. I mean, it work pay it forwards Bulwark on coffee at Starbucks. That’s kinda where it comes from is people saying, hey, I’m gonna pay for the person behind me, and then that person pays for the person behind them, and that person, like, that’s coffee.
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That’s not a movement. People like paying it forward. It’s it’s a it’s a it’s a great experience. And, it’s just doing a good turn for for the next person. And, so it’s gonna it’s gonna work on it’s gonna work better on some movies than others, but I think I think this is something that isn’t gonna go
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Yeah. I always like to close these interviews by asking if there’s anything I should have asked. If you think there’s anything folks should know about, either with what you’re doing, state of the end in general, what what did I fail to ask that people should know about?
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I think filmmakers can know. There’s been this big concern that independent films with new storylines don’t have a chance in the theatrical world. And that’s that has been kind of the trend for a while. But I think that’s because You just need someone else. Like, people love movies.
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And and I I believe So there there’s a I believe theatrical has a very bright future. And the reason why is because we are so suffocated with screens and social media that people are looking for a way to set down. They need, the rabbit room blog from by Andrew Peterson, who does the the wing feathers saga series, which is a best selling book series that we have a animated series about the Wing feather saga, and it’s in the Angel Studios app. But Andrew Peterson’s blog, the Robert Room talks about how the a blog post called the the Sacramento of Cinema. And the the similarities between going to a church and setting aside all your distractions, and focusing completely on one thing for a period of time to rest your mind.
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And to allow you to rejuvenate and heal, in the in the case of a sacrament, you’re it’s it’s Christ that you’re focused on. But when you go to the cinema, you’re you’re you’re you’re intentionally surrendering every bit of distraction you have You’re turning off your phones. You’re leaving work behind. You’re leaving your family problems behind. You’re leaving everything behind.
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And and the people who are listening to me, especially people who love cinema. Understand this feeling. It’s an escape and a focus, and you just get to hear with a message of what that director says. And what that story that’s been crafted just for you is, and you do it in a communal setting. There are people getting up at the end of sound of freedom and doing standing applause all over the country, and there are people hugging each other complete strangers.
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We we like, you just go through Reddit and you go through social media, it’s all over the place. And but that’s because there’s this, like, communal moment for cinema. And so people have been saying, oh, it’s gonna home theaters are now cheaper, and the big screen is cheap at home. But at home, I can push the pause button, and I can get distracted. I can vol terribly get distracted, and you don’t have the meditative experience that you get when you walk into a theater and and just surrender everything to to be disconnected from your phones and from the internet and from all the troubles in your life, and just focus and have it, like, what oftentimes can be a life changing experience.
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And so That’s why I think as as connectivity gets stronger, the cinemas are actually gonna strengthen. The the brokenness of their model doesn’t have to do with the experience. It has to do with the fact that, Hollywood is just operating on old systems. And Angel Studios has cracked that nut, and now producers can say, I can get big money bigger money. I mean, I I wouldn’t recommend going and raising a hundred plus million dollars for a film, but good budgets for great stories are now possible again because we’ve cracked the knot.
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And and it if you have a story that amplifies light, and and tell and uplifts people and brings meaning, you know, the you’re you’re going to have a home available at Angel Studios for the the fantastic creators.
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Let me ask just one one exit question here because you you do mention budgets. Sound of my my understanding, it cost about thirteen, fourteen million in that rate. Yeah.
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Fourteen point five.
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And, you said the shift cost about six and a half.
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Yep. Six and a half.
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What are I like, in terms of budgets, what are what are you, working with? Is it just whatever you can raise? I mean, do you you have a, like, a do you have a cap? What are what are you just lying
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in terms of? The story kinda caps people out So, like, we have a budget coming in twenty twenty four that’s a sixty two million dollar film called David. It’s an animated movie. That’s, that’s the story of King David. And, the the the, you know, the ancient Jewish story And he’s one of the most famous stories of all time.
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And because he’s a musician in the real story, it’s a musical, but it’s a it has music that is motivated. He’s one of the greatest musicians. The whole entire book Jewish book of Psalms is all written. Most of that’s written by David. He’s one of the greatest musicians in the history of the world.
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And so he there’s motivated music because he’s singing to the king and the king saw on the king’s court. But it’s this incredible animated series coming out of the studio out of South Africa that they are gonna do with sixty two million dollars, what the big studios do with well over a hundred a hundred and fifty million dollars because they just know how to use their money well. So that’s a big one. That’s a big swing. That’s coming in twenty twenty five.
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That will launch in twenty twenty five. It’s been in production right now. And it’s a and they have raised the money. The I I think they just have a few million dollars left to raise. Then there’s another one coming out in March of next year, which is much larger budgets.
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It’s called Cabini. I don’t think the budgets are public right now, but they probably will be at some point. But Cabini is the story of a forgotten American hero. Mother Cabini that came an Italian immigrant who, is a nun that stood up against the pope, stood up against the government in New York and stood up and stood between the system that was corrupted and broken and hundreds of thousands of immigrant children. And she knew that if she failed, they would they would these kids would continue to die.
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And she changed the entire, like, I I it’s a it’s a movie that I I’m ashamed that I didn’t even know her story. Before meeting these filmmakers. But this movie is gonna put her on the map in a big way, and everybody will know the name of Cabini. And that’s done by the same director as Sound of Freedom You can see the cabrini trailer online right now. Cabrini Angel Studios just search search for that and you’ll see it.
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And it this this Like, the way it’s described is this isn’t a motion picture. This is a motion painting. Every single frame of this movie is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. And they have an amazing story of why that happened. And, why it be like, it’s just It’s a stunning film.
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My wife said top top three of all time when she screened the movie for her. Yeah. And and and we’re getting top three top one of all time for almost everybody we’re screening it with.
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Alright. So sound of free the the So
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those are bigger budget films.
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Sound of Freedom is gonna be cabrini. That’s what we’re
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Yeah. The director the director of Sound of Freedom did Kabini. And they’re very different projects. They’re very different. They have different looks But Alejandro Monteverde is an underrated director, and he is, a master, and you’ll you’ll see it.
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Just just watch the trailer and you’re gonna see it. Like, she’s she’s a she’s a hero that isn’t a hero because she’s doing manly things. She’s not like killing a bunch of dudes and wearing you know, like, blowing stuff up and things. She’s a hero because she’s doing things standing up to the Vatican, standing up to the government in ways that only a woman can. And at a time where women can’t vote, at a time where they can’t own property, like, she’s I Mother Theresa’s entire life was in Like, she built her life around this lady, Cabini.
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Yeah. Alright. Thank you very much for being on the show, Jeffrey. I really appreciate it. Again, sound of freedom still in theater.
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So you can go you can go see it. I have a feeling it’s gonna be playing, you know, through the through through the fall. At least, with the numbers that it continues to put up on a daily basis. So check it out if you haven’t. My name is Sunny Bunch.
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Culture editor at the Bulwark, and I will be back next week with another episode of the Bulwark goes to Hollywood. We’ll see you guys
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You love La la Kent on Vanderpump rules. Now get to know her on give them Is it weird having a million things to talk about? And the only thing he wanted to talk about is bravo.
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Yes. And it’s always weird. It’s like I went to the White House correspondence dinner and thought that this was my chance to, like, make a change, and they were like, well enough about change. And then I had so many questions for Howie that had nothing to do and he was like, so scandal.
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Give them La la. Wherever you listen.
