'Sound of Freedom' Beats Out Taylor Swift's 'Eras Tour' in Top 10 Box Office Slot for 2023
The movie Sound of Freedom, a low-budget drama no major theatrical company wanted to release to theaters, finished in the top 10 grossing movies of 2023, edging out popular favorites like Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
As CBN News reported, Sound of Freedom, the faith-based film based on the true story of a former Homeland Security agent who embarks on a mission to rescue hundreds of children from sex traffickers, was the surprise hit of last summer, beating out bigger-budget films at the box office.
BoxOfficeMojo.com released its annual yearly list of the top-grossing films in the U.S. showing Sound of Freedom, the Angel Studios film, at the number 10 spot for the year with a total box office of $184,177,725.
The top three highest-grossing films were No. 1 Barbie ($636,225,983), No. 2 The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($574,934,330), and No. 3 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($381,311,319), according to the outlet.
The Sound of Freedom outperformed the pop music phenom No. 11 Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour ($179,635,196), and summer movie mega-franchises including No. 12 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (174,480,468) and No. 13 Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One ($172,135,383).
Sound of Freedom was an overwhelming hit with the theater-going audience too, racking up at 99% audience ranking.
So far, the movie has made more than $248,106,204 worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
The movie opened on the Fourth of July as a summer surprise to critics, and it has continued to stun Hollywood with its overwhelming success. The film finished number one on opening weekend, number two on its second weekend, and then finished at number three on its third weekend.
The film is about the true story of former government agent Tim Ballard who quit his job to go and rescue a little girl from sex traffickers in the Colombian jungle. In the process, Ballard ends up saving 123 people, 55 of whom were children, from one mission alone.
The movie stars Jim Caviezel, Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp, José Zúñiga, and Eduardo Verástegui.
Ballard told CBN's Faithwire that no one anticipated the project would do so well.
Success came even after critics tried to smear the film as a low-budget feature with QAnon ties, but those baseless attacks didn't deter audiences from supporting the film's mission to expose the real, global problem of child trafficking.
As for those dismissing the movie as being conspiracy theory-oriented, Ballard said the media outlets perpetuating these accusations are lying. "These people coming out against the film … they're lying about it, and they know they are," he said. "Anyone who watches the film knows there's nothing QAnonish or 'QAnon-adjacent.'"
Explaining how Sound of Freedom sat for years after being shelved by Disney before finding a home with Utah-based Angel Studios, Ballard made an important point: the movie was made well before anyone was widely coining or using the QAnon term.
Angel Studios is the streaming and distribution platform behind the film and successfully launched The Chosen – the most successful crowdfunded project of all time – into theaters last year.
When The Chosen series debuted the first two episodes of season 3 in theaters last year, it snagged the third spot at the box office beating out DC Comics, Universal, and Disney.
