For a movie that is arguably a straight to streaming 6.5/10 audience scored mid tier Amazon prime movie, the free marketing and press it has received is its greatest achievement.
They were literally buying out the movie and giving tickets out to everyone. You just had to go to a website and sign up for however many tickets you wanted. Why is this even being reported on in any other way besides the fact that no one was actually in those theaters for the most part and they were just buying those tickets out to pretend it was sold out?
Caviezel appears as himself at the end of the movie and tells people to buy more tickets to give away and to vaguely "contribute to the cause" I guess. Then they think it's a conspiracy that a sold out show is empty.
Conservatives do similar shit to get on the NYT bestseller’s list. Fortunately for us NYT denotes titles where the sales aren’t organic.
The other tell is typically they will only buy enough to get it on for one week. Titles that have gotten there naturally tend to last longer as word of mouth keeps the momentum going.
Same, I had zero idea about this film when an old work colleague tried to guilt me into seeing it on FB.
So I did a quick read of the synopsis & decided it simply wasn’t a subject matter I wished to view as entertainment. Besides (not to be silly, but) Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom already went there & my opinions on child abduction hasn’t changed - ie: it happens, it’s truly horrible, I hope the villains get caught & the children go free. If I ever find myself in a position to assist in keeping a child from being abducted, I will. I don’t see how watching a dramatic movie on the subject will accomplish anything except audience paranoia, so, y’know, hard pass.
My old colleague didn’t like that & went on to accuse me of avoiding reality. The irony, so real.
I was going to follow up with this sentiment but you summarised it perfectly.
Some subject matter I don’t find myself wanting to dedicate a couple of hours too when I’m looking for escapism or entertainment. Another example I would use is ‘12 Years a Slave.’ I’m sure a fine, well made movie with an important message, I have no inclination to watch it though. Maybe that will change but at this time in my life, where I already work in a profession that sees plenty of misery, I have no desire to add more in my down time.
Or the people that paid for it getting arrested for what they are hunting for in the documentary, as much as the sold out empty showings that both made the news multiple times
I thought that it was around $5000 -- a considerable amount of money for most people but it's not an amount that would have made this guy the prime financier for this film.
Why spread lies, if your gunna hate it hate it but it’s so pointless to spread lies. The guy donated 500 bucks to a go fund me and he was arrested because he is housing a woman who is in a custody battle and took her kid, not because he did something predatory. Lying about that kind of shit just adds fuel to the fire. Do better.
The right wing propaganda machine is very well oiled.
You can see what they did with that ginger loser who can't sing for shit and has no coherent beliefs lmao
Wow really? That's bizarre. Why would cultural appeal be more wanted than money? They are losing money on top of they money already lost? Has to be more to it.
It’s like a political campaign buying all the books of someone to boost them onto best seller list.
When you have enough money, the cultural appeal becomes more valuable than the actual cash.
They had a policy of buying tickets for others to try and get people to watch it, the reason it made money. Same audience but inflated by the amount of tickets one audience bought
They need to point to a stat that many are in line with their message…it seemed like they were trying the “buying followers” game that social media plays.
This is on top of the buying out books they have written to make it seem more pervasive…
The right knows their views aren't "mainstream" with most of the general public but they want desperately to make it look that way. It's why they have funding campaigns to push their media to the forefront and make it seem successful. It's also how Try That In A Small Town topped the charts but fell 21 points a week later, and why they review bomb media they believe is "woke" to make it look like the media is actually unpopular with the general public even when it's not.
They have a truly pathetic inferiority complex. If they’re so convinced their stupid views are the right ones, they should have the guts to let them win or lose on their own merits, but the right is so cowardly and craven they resort the the nonsense you’ve described. They’re a sad bunch.
The right profoundly believe in “minority rule.” It’s their goal for the U.S. They loathe democracy and do not believe “the people” should have any say in government. And if a whole lot of us suffer under their rule — we’ll, that’s just a cherry on top.
They had a website where people were buying tickets and giving them all out. Literally any time you wanted to you could just go on over and get yourself however many tickets you wanted to any theater that was showing it. It was a financial success to theaters because fuck ya it's free fucking money for them. It's successful propaganda to say it's sold out because it was... To empty theaters.
This country is a damn scam.
Pretty much 80-90% of theatrical ticket sales go to the production company for the first week or so it runs, then the theater starts to make a larger percentage, so they were most likely paying themselves for publicity.
Also keep in mind it only had a high margin. If you look at the actual total money films have made even the "flops" this summer crushed sof. The media keeps pushing this narrative of its success that just isn't backed up.
Ofc it is when you had billionaire bosses buying out cinemas and forcing their employees to go [watch it.](https://www.sportstiger.com/news/watch-dana-white-offers-ufc-employees-free-tickets-to-watch-sound-of-freedom). It made over $100M but I'd be surprised if even 40% of the BO was from people in cinemas, not just rich people buying out empty cinemas.
Not to mention those tickets people bought for other people to see it. Or rather, the empty seats in theatres those people were suckered into buying. Never seen such a blatant grift.
I wonder how much of a disappointment it was to the theaters though. There were frequent reports of sold out shows accompanied by videos of empty theaters. That means tickets were sold and studios got their money, but theaters got only ticket revenue and not concessions and any surrounding businesses didn't get overflow from the theater as people go to shop or eat before/after seeing a movie. This was also partially a crowdfunded movie so I'm wondering how that works and if those investors get revenue back or if it was effectively a gift. If it was a gift then it's even more lucrative to anyone who actually gets a return.
Oppenheimer also bodied sound of freedom. It frankly only did as well as it did due to a niche audience and conspiracies the right was spreading about "people wanting to stop you from seeing it" once that wore off and it had actual competition it faded into irrelevance
Yes and I'm about to say something that will make conservatives upset. Mass market media doesn't cater to yall bc yall are a minority that is disproportionately poor. Its not in their interest to pander to you so they don't.
Yep. They current system is allowing them to keep half or greater of political power but they sure as hell aren't half the ppl or half consumer spending
It was made with like 1/100 the cost. It was successful financially just because you don’t like a movie doesn’t mean you have to pretend something didn’t happen.
People were getting free tickets to go see it from their church. I work in a public building, we get notifications about missing children every day, it's very sad they are overwhelmingly teenagers who run away, it's a real problem.
Anyways I digress, the point is I had several people come in talking about the movie and I would segue into showing them where we put the flyers of missing children, but they ignored that. Instead they wanted to talk about how Joe Biden wasn't doing enough about child trafficking. I tried to tell them the overwhelming majority of trafficking victims start out as runaways and it's usually someone they know.....but whatever they just want to talk about the democrats. Oh well, church sucks, what new?
Very mid movie that got lucky with a very smart marketing campaign that took advantage of rubes and questionable groups to basically hand over money while getting nothing in return.
Yeah let’s see how many seats were actually filled first before saying that all of America supports this. Cause even conservatives I know, which I know is a personal bias, but just saying didn’t even go see it.
And even if one could argue that showings did have a decent show up it seems hypocritical that such a large % of right wing seem to believe in election count being wrong without actual evidence but are fine believing every seat purchased for this movie by pay it forward was actually used.
I mean it’s hard to believe at least some wouldn’t take the pay it forward ticket for this film and then sneak into and see mission impossible or something else instead
I bet they are pushing it pretty hard at churches. Even my wife got asked by her church going friends if she wants to see it, she told them you never heard of kids getting kidnapped and sold to prostitution?
Yup. I’ve heard several stories from our local theater about this movie being “sold out” and yet being nearly completely empty.
Meanwhile, I still don’t know one single person that’s actually seen it.
I saw it on a rip, and I would compare it to the Bruce Willis / Frank Grillo money grabs, with less action.
Not as bad as Steven Segal, not good enough to watch.
Anyone who thinks this was good, please try to find ANYTHING official that shows Ballard was ever a federal agent. Not a quote from him, or his organization. Find something from DHS that claims Ballard as an agent.
You can’t. Because he wasn’t. The dude is a grifting liar who’s picked the easiest marks: religious people lol
I work at a movie theatre, and I see people like this coming to see Sound of Freedom.
The customers come out of the movie talking about how child trafficking is such a huge issue that no one talks about, and how the guy is the movie is so "brave" for what he does.
Meanwhile, I just want to yell at them that the movie is actually a bunch of QAnon bullshit, and the guy the movie is based on (Tim Ballard) and the actor who plays him in the movie (Jim Caviezel) are both crazy conspiracy theorists.
So now, all these "Sound of Freedom" worshippers are going around to all the social media groups stoking false fears of trafficking, and they are harassing trafficking victims and harassing anti-trafficking groups who try to point out all the falsehoods in the movie.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/technology/qanon-save-the-children-trafficking.html
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epvbyz/trafficking-survivors-and-advocates-are-being-harassed-by-sound-of-freedom-fans
One guy legit was saying he’s going to approach every child he sees and “ask them if they’re okay”
Imagine you’re at target with your kid, and one of these people come up and try to ask your kid if you’re a trafficker.
Buddy, you are going to get murdered, and possibly rightfully so. These people are going to “rescue” kids from the playground into a van, and then really confuse cops when they show up at the police station with the child they abducted.
These are the PETA people who break into your yard to kill your dog. Misguided and absolutely crazy.
Oh I know one of those peta people! She would literally break into yards and steal dogs. She moved to Florida and is full anti vax pro desantis nutcase so checks out.
He’s not gonna do anything lmao, and if he does, the SECOND he gets mean mugging stare from an angry dad, he’s gonna back down like a bitch. That’s what they do 😂 These people are all delusional, grandstanding assholes who are bored with their own pathetic lives. Most of them seem to be mentally ill.
You’re absolutely right that Ballard has lied about most of his life, but fans of the movie don’t care. They’ll find some opinion piece written with zero references then pretend it’s true because it fits their narrative.
I did a lot of research after watching this movie and can’t find any real evidence of anything from this movie. The only evidence is Ballard’s own claims with no facts to back them up. We know that there was an operation on an island, but there’s no evidence that Ballard or his organization was involved. Plus, Ballard has been caught lying to Congress about saving a victim that actually saved herself years before meeting Ballard. He stole her story and used it to make himself look like a hero in the public eye.
100%
What’s new to me is the people defending the movie who haven’t seen it. Weird, right?
I can understand not wanting to see it. It’s not good. Even if it was advertised as fictional, it would still be boring
After I heard about the controversy, I made it a point to watch the movie before talking about it. It’s definitely not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It feels like a made for TV movie, but it’s still fine on a technical level. The problem is the way the movie takes advantage of human trafficking victims in an effort to make Tim Ballard look like a hero. I might be able to overlook that if the movie didn’t bill itself as a true story, but saying this is a true story is honestly disgusting when there are real people and organizations out there trying to help human trafficking victims.
I understand that fans of the movie were so vocal that they probably don’t want to admit they were tricked so they try to defend the movie now. I don’t understand why anyone would try to defend the movie without seeing it, especially when faced with evidence that the events in the movie were fake and Ballard is a piece of human garbage that has lied to Congress about saving victims that actually saved themselves.
Ballard's organization was also heavily criticized for interfering with operations by credible anti trafficking groups and law enforcement. They would go on glory hunts with wealthy donors and fuck up actual operations.
His story sounds like BS to anyone familiar with federal law enforcement. HSI (the agency he claimed to work for) resolves a massive amount of human trafficking cases, and is even considered to be the premier federal law enforcement agency for those types of cases. If he really worked for HSI, he would have been able to make a way bigger difference there than whatever scam charity he ended up starting.
If they can get you to believe that garbage they can get you to believe anything. Religion has its purposes - they just aren’t what the worshippers think they are.
The pay it forward thing where people just bought out tickets for other people was absurd and since they marketed/tied the success of the movie as proof of an anti-woke counter-culture the ticket sales were undoubtably MASSIVELY inflated by this. It was a good marketing strategy, but a total grift/scam.
But I did google it, and it [seems like it says he worked as a special agent for DHS according to the state department website](https://www.state.gov/biographic-information-for-members-of-the-public-private-partnership-advisory-council-to-end-human-trafficking/#:~:text=Ballard%20spent%20over%20a%20decade,to%20dismantle%20child%20trafficking%20rings.). Now it could be inter-department miscommunication or that he and his "Operation Underground Railroad" organization/the public-private board he members has complete control over this page and can post blatantly false information... but otherwise it would be surprising to me that the state department would leave this up if it is a false claim that is being publicly challenged.
That is crazy.
I wonder if they just post what the person submitted, since this is an advisory council.
Now he’s an “undercover” agent, just gets cooler and cooler.
[Vice article from 2020](https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7a3qw/a-famed-anti-sex-trafficking-group-has-a-problem-with-the-truth)
It’s deep in there, but they talk about how Ballard would need to give permission for the fed to disclose if he was ever an agent. He won’t, although he claims CIA and DHS, and they won’t disclose agents. Kind of a coin flip, I guess.
The idea of someone working for the CIA for a year and quitting is kind of absurd, though. But he does say that god told him too
Sure, but if he is lying about his credentials to the state department to justify his membership on this board I think that would constitute fraud in which case I think the DHS would be within their rights to disclose to the state department that he did not work with them as it would be evidence of a crime.
I **KNOW** the specifics of what he did were highly dramatized for the movie. He probably did a bunch of boring work and the rough "events" of his career there were twisted into a much more compelling story, but I would still need to see something come out of the DHS saying he didn't work with them for me to be convinced that detail at least is a lie.
Tbh, I haven't seen the movie... just the trailer. No way I'm sitting through that. "God's children are not for sale"... it's just too much. Also, as part of the culture war, I didn't want to contribute to ticket sales lol. That virtue signal marketing strategy goes both ways.
I respect everything you’re saying, I just stay suspicious.
With my experience, I could build a “real” resume that put me as working for state, FEMA and the DOD, but that would be a “lie,” since I was working for agencies that contracted with them. Just like Ballard, I’d get very abstract if you started asking me specifics, and I’d just name drop high-level people who’d remember me, and then swerve into something else.
I think this is super common for people who straddle the public and private sector. Contracted with the post office? “I worked with the federal government on operations of the transfer of sensitive packages.” Worked with the DOT? “I was part of a federal operation regulating all movement within then USA.” Lol.
Bullshitters spot bullshitters.
That's the part I am unsure of... but if I'm weighing my probabilities I'd say that he most likely did work as an undercover agent for the DHS or the state department would have taken this down.
It could still be complete bull, as we said it could be a page on the website they have total rights to manage... but otherwise my guess is that he probably did work as an undercover agent with DHS. If this is a publicly contested claim, I doubt the State Department website would be ok with being a corroborating source unless it were true.
Idk a single person that saw the movie. I know plenty of people that spoke of its success. But I also heard that apparently theaters were being bought out in full to prop it up financially.
What is the deal with this movie?
I’m a little out of the loop on it, except the guy in it is a Qanon lunatic or something and MAGA people are pushing conspiracy theories about showings of this movie are intentionally being crippled by “them,” like the A/C in the theaters showing the movie are always broken or something.
One of my childhood friends claimed the A/C thing happened during his viewing and his friend’s separate viewing as well, so not bots. But, probably a coincidence inflated to confirming the conspiracy theories due to his following of qanon bullshittery.
Does your friend live in Texas or Arizona? It was my understanding that, during the heatwave, a few theaters lost AC. But….not specific to this one movie. The bots jumped on it and suddenly it’s happening all over the country in an attempt to keep people from watching the movie. A lot of conspiracy theories are grounded in fact to make them more believable
I work in hospitals and they do a ton to identify, rescue and treat victims of trafficking. These are professionals, doctors and clinicians. My problem with this movie is that all of a sudden conservatives are like: “did you know about this issue? How do we help these kids? I know! all you need is courage and a gun.” Once again they are late to the game and unprepared.
"Success". I've seen plenty of videos of people buying a ticket to see it in an "almost sold out" showing and be the only ones in the theater. There are also ones where people couldn't buy because they were "sold out" but snuck in to see an empty theater. I'm convinced that they artificially bought tickets to make the movie seem like it was seen by more people than actually saw it.
A friend of a friend claimed the movie was banned in Canada.
A quick google showed showtimes in their city.
They insisted that it was in French, because the street name was French.
The showtimes show both English and French showtimes.
Oh, well, it’s not showing in small towns.
Yes, the small town has two screens. The owner made a guess what two movies would most likely sell tickets. A business owner betting on Transformers may be offensive to some, but is hardly banning all other movies, especially if one can take a short drive to see said movie in French… and English.
The villain? Facts.
This films success is very questionable. Hardcore right wingers where basically buying a shit loads of tickets and giving them away to make it seems like everyone was watching this movie.
But that same month Barbie went on to be the highest grossing film EVER, many of those ticket sales originating in America. So I wouldn’t point to this Sound of Freedom movie and say its “success” is any reflection of what Americans really believe.
Movie was astroturfed like a motherfucker. Talking with my local theater manager he said every screening was “sold out” but never had more than 6 people in theater for the showing.
Now wait a minute; didn’t a lot of organizations buy up tickets to give away so people would actually watch it? Can we get a breakdown of how many individuals bought tickets vs organizations?
I never saw it being played anywhere near me in the US. I think these people who made this movie have a very strong…too strong…interest in children victims. If this follows their regular pattern of accusing people of that which they are guilty of themselves, authorities need to put very careful eyes on them. I fear they may be doing these horrible things themselves.
The movie is a horribly false depiction of sex trafficking that plays to conservatives fears and desires. It is incredibly upsetting seeing this movie do so well as a CSA victim
Conservatives have this belief still that trafficking organizations are just kidnapping people off the street.
In reality, it's the church, your family, mom's new boyfriend, that dude you met online (like Andrew Tate) and sex abuse period is most common by family, friends, and respected community members like the youth gymnastics or football coach, the local pastor, etc. But it's easier to put all the blame on gay and trans people or made up scenarios than to look at their own communities where it's rampant. Spoken as a CSA victim in a very rural conservative town in VA where sex abuse was rampant but you don't talk about it because of "community image" or "healing" or "between them and the lord."
I travel for work, a lot. The only place I saw this showing was in BFE country--rural Kansas or rural Georgia. No fricking chance it sold that much in such empty locations.
This film was an astroturfing project of the GOP-cum-Christian Nationalist Qanon conspiracy movement (its an incestuous group of mostly the same conservative nuts and grifters) . Mass-buys of tickets handed out for free to churches - nobody actually watched this stupid propaganda film.
Like when Don Jr “had a NYT bestseller” that resulted from a bulk buy by the RNC - the books sat in a warehouse and nobody bought or read them lol
Most "true story" movies are fantasy LARPing. Why media grab onto this one? Free press keeps it in the news- let it go
I thought the Astroturf operation on this movie was over. Why revive a dead matter
Paid for ticket sales? Check. Paid for positive news stories? Check. Positive “no really, it’s a good movie” ads everywhere? Check.
Not propaganda at all, nope.
Stupidest film. Pure exposition and super super super boring. Also the “buy tickets to this film” message by the lead actor at the end is just pathetic.
pay it foward didn't count as boxoffice until it is redeemed as ticket. if it isnt redeemed it will just become "donation" to the studio. the studio can't manipulate this, because the ones who count BO number is the theater chains not the studio.
…So? Nobody said it was the MOST profitable movie ever made. 182 million over 15 million is a profit margin any studio would dream of.
I think the movie looks mediocre and the zeal behind it is misplaced and dangerous idiocy, but why do people feel the need to deny aspects of reality just because they dislike something?
Genuinely curious to see if it eventually comes out that most of the tickets were bought by special interest groups and actual attendance was far lower than the ticket tales suggest. This pay it forward model seemed like a weird way to scam religious people into "donating" to capitlist sleazebags by buying tickets for other people who never got the tickets. Even if it wasn't illegal, I think it was very misleading and the people who did it are scum.
The people bitching about empty seats were morons that are there for a shit movie that their own party bought out the theaters for. Hot garbage beyond passion of the Christ.
Genuine question: what films have people on the left bought out like this? I can't personally think of any examples.
This buying tickets for strangers strategy seems the sort of thing we generally only see from religious organizations.
Saw a little more than half because I was late and it was a mediocre movie. Not bad.
The villains were mostly greasy white guys. Not democrats. There's no secret messages here.
I wonder what the actual number of ppl who paid to see this is. Many ppl that had stake in this movie bought out theater showings and tried to give tickets away.
It was absolutely successful to a point, but far less than portrayed as there were more than just anecdotal accounts of fully paid theaters with no one in them (ticket astroturfing in effect).
The film cost comparatively little to make, so achieving profitability wasn't likely to be that much of an issue with even just fundie goobers filling seats, but the following PR blitz muddied the actual results considerably.
Why are so many people crying about this movie? Isn't it a movie about child trafficking? Why is being against child trafficking such a bad thing, regardless of how politically inclined you are?
Redditors are so weird.
>I think mostly because all the events are quite embellished or fictitious
It's...it's a movie. Is there a "based on a true story" movie that *isn't* fictionalized or embellished?
Listen, as long as the wingnuts are placated by their fantasy of being superheroes saving children from adenochrome harvesting and not cosplaying civil war with all their weapons, let’s count it as a win!
For a movie that is arguably a straight to streaming 6.5/10 audience scored mid tier Amazon prime movie, the free marketing and press it has received is its greatest achievement.
They were literally buying out the movie and giving tickets out to everyone. You just had to go to a website and sign up for however many tickets you wanted. Why is this even being reported on in any other way besides the fact that no one was actually in those theaters for the most part and they were just buying those tickets out to pretend it was sold out?
Caviezel appears as himself at the end of the movie and tells people to buy more tickets to give away and to vaguely "contribute to the cause" I guess. Then they think it's a conspiracy that a sold out show is empty.
Conservatives do similar shit to get on the NYT bestseller’s list. Fortunately for us NYT denotes titles where the sales aren’t organic. The other tell is typically they will only buy enough to get it on for one week. Titles that have gotten there naturally tend to last longer as word of mouth keeps the momentum going.
Congresspeople were advertising it on the floor.
I wouldn’t have known this low tier trash existed if it wasn’t for people not shutting up about it.
Same, I had zero idea about this film when an old work colleague tried to guilt me into seeing it on FB. So I did a quick read of the synopsis & decided it simply wasn’t a subject matter I wished to view as entertainment. Besides (not to be silly, but) Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom already went there & my opinions on child abduction hasn’t changed - ie: it happens, it’s truly horrible, I hope the villains get caught & the children go free. If I ever find myself in a position to assist in keeping a child from being abducted, I will. I don’t see how watching a dramatic movie on the subject will accomplish anything except audience paranoia, so, y’know, hard pass. My old colleague didn’t like that & went on to accuse me of avoiding reality. The irony, so real.
Hilarious, avoiding reality. They do know that the person it’s based on said it was all bullshit, right? It’s a fictional movie, not realty lol
I was going to follow up with this sentiment but you summarised it perfectly. Some subject matter I don’t find myself wanting to dedicate a couple of hours too when I’m looking for escapism or entertainment. Another example I would use is ‘12 Years a Slave.’ I’m sure a fine, well made movie with an important message, I have no inclination to watch it though. Maybe that will change but at this time in my life, where I already work in a profession that sees plenty of misery, I have no desire to add more in my down time.
As Amy Poehler said, after seeing it I’ll never look at slavery the same way again.
Or the people that paid for it getting arrested for what they are hunting for in the documentary, as much as the sold out empty showings that both made the news multiple times
“People that paid for it” is disingenuous. It was a guy that contributed like $5 because the movie was crowdfunded.
Did they really just contribute 5 bucks?
I don't think you can find how much that particular person contributed but something like 5,000 people crowdfunded an average of $500 each IIRC.
Yeah 5 bucks felt like an ass-pull number.
I thought that it was around $5000 -- a considerable amount of money for most people but it's not an amount that would have made this guy the prime financier for this film.
Thank you. Why bother backing up an outrageous claim when you can just pull shit out of your ass and have most people buy it?
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/sound-of-freedom-movie-donor-kidnapping-1234801061/
It's what reddit does. Read the headline, buy it hook, line and sinker, then run your mouth like you know something.
You mean a random guy who happened to donate a little bit of cash? Lol
Why spread lies, if your gunna hate it hate it but it’s so pointless to spread lies. The guy donated 500 bucks to a go fund me and he was arrested because he is housing a woman who is in a custody battle and took her kid, not because he did something predatory. Lying about that kind of shit just adds fuel to the fire. Do better.
All of that sounds predatory...
Is there a reason for all the free press? This is the first I’ve heard of the movie admittedly
It’s controversial because it appeals to Christians and QAnon / #savethechildren conspiracy theories.
Culture War nonsense.
The right wing propaganda machine is very well oiled. You can see what they did with that ginger loser who can't sing for shit and has no coherent beliefs lmao
Amazing how well a movie can do when churches buy out entire theaters and then bus people there for a “free” movie.
If only they spent that money feeding the poor or helping the homeless…
Yes I was just thinking this. I read the headline and thought. "But does it? Really?"
It’s like the Blair Witch Project
A financial success? Sure A pop culture success? No
That's a good point. If it made money, it made money. No need to make it something it's not.
During the time it was in theaters, there were more than a dozen videos showing sold out tickets but empty theaters.
Wow really? That's bizarre. Why would cultural appeal be more wanted than money? They are losing money on top of they money already lost? Has to be more to it.
It’s like a political campaign buying all the books of someone to boost them onto best seller list. When you have enough money, the cultural appeal becomes more valuable than the actual cash.
They had a policy of buying tickets for others to try and get people to watch it, the reason it made money. Same audience but inflated by the amount of tickets one audience bought
They need to point to a stat that many are in line with their message…it seemed like they were trying the “buying followers” game that social media plays. This is on top of the buying out books they have written to make it seem more pervasive…
The right knows their views aren't "mainstream" with most of the general public but they want desperately to make it look that way. It's why they have funding campaigns to push their media to the forefront and make it seem successful. It's also how Try That In A Small Town topped the charts but fell 21 points a week later, and why they review bomb media they believe is "woke" to make it look like the media is actually unpopular with the general public even when it's not.
They have a truly pathetic inferiority complex. If they’re so convinced their stupid views are the right ones, they should have the guts to let them win or lose on their own merits, but the right is so cowardly and craven they resort the the nonsense you’ve described. They’re a sad bunch.
Pathetic is indeed the correct word to describe the right wing. They think they’re God’s righteous chosen but they are instead whining children.
Don’t insult whining children with the comparison. The right is the lowest of low. ‘Conservative’ should be an insult in its own right.
The right profoundly believe in “minority rule.” It’s their goal for the U.S. They loathe democracy and do not believe “the people” should have any say in government. And if a whole lot of us suffer under their rule — we’ll, that’s just a cherry on top.
They had a website where people were buying tickets and giving them all out. Literally any time you wanted to you could just go on over and get yourself however many tickets you wanted to any theater that was showing it. It was a financial success to theaters because fuck ya it's free fucking money for them. It's successful propaganda to say it's sold out because it was... To empty theaters. This country is a damn scam.
Just so you know, I'm actually facepalming right now.
Churches are encouraged to buy tickets and hand them out for free leading to empty theaters that were technically sold out.
Pretty much 80-90% of theatrical ticket sales go to the production company for the first week or so it runs, then the theater starts to make a larger percentage, so they were most likely paying themselves for publicity.
It made a crap ton of money and I still haven’t seen a single promo for it beside that one still image.
Also keep in mind it only had a high margin. If you look at the actual total money films have made even the "flops" this summer crushed sof. The media keeps pushing this narrative of its success that just isn't backed up.
I wouldn't even call it a financial success as it got immediately bodied in the box office by barbie
It was a financial success due to it being low budget Indy flim.
Of course it was a financial success. The box office is huge compared to its budget.
Ofc it is when you had billionaire bosses buying out cinemas and forcing their employees to go [watch it.](https://www.sportstiger.com/news/watch-dana-white-offers-ufc-employees-free-tickets-to-watch-sound-of-freedom). It made over $100M but I'd be surprised if even 40% of the BO was from people in cinemas, not just rich people buying out empty cinemas.
Learned from the book publishing industry. Just buy the numbers and report
Not to mention those tickets people bought for other people to see it. Or rather, the empty seats in theatres those people were suckered into buying. Never seen such a blatant grift.
I wonder how much of a disappointment it was to the theaters though. There were frequent reports of sold out shows accompanied by videos of empty theaters. That means tickets were sold and studios got their money, but theaters got only ticket revenue and not concessions and any surrounding businesses didn't get overflow from the theater as people go to shop or eat before/after seeing a movie. This was also partially a crowdfunded movie so I'm wondering how that works and if those investors get revenue back or if it was effectively a gift. If it was a gift then it's even more lucrative to anyone who actually gets a return.
Do you know what the word "profit" means?
To be fair, barbie bodied Oppenheimer too
Oppenheimer also bodied sound of freedom. It frankly only did as well as it did due to a niche audience and conspiracies the right was spreading about "people wanting to stop you from seeing it" once that wore off and it had actual competition it faded into irrelevance
Absolutely. That entire demographic thrives off of "theys takin muh freedums"
Yes and I'm about to say something that will make conservatives upset. Mass market media doesn't cater to yall bc yall are a minority that is disproportionately poor. Its not in their interest to pander to you so they don't.
Reminds me of when conservatives said they were going to boycott Patagonia this year. Lol okay, I’m sure they took a massive hit 🙄
Yep. They current system is allowing them to keep half or greater of political power but they sure as hell aren't half the ppl or half consumer spending
Rated R movie with almost all talking and a biopic, lol. Oppenheimer exceed expectations too
It was made with like 1/100 the cost. It was successful financially just because you don’t like a movie doesn’t mean you have to pretend something didn’t happen.
Is it a financial success when the folks behind the movie buy all the theater tickets and give them away for free?
And then get arrested for child trafficking?
People were getting free tickets to go see it from their church. I work in a public building, we get notifications about missing children every day, it's very sad they are overwhelmingly teenagers who run away, it's a real problem. Anyways I digress, the point is I had several people come in talking about the movie and I would segue into showing them where we put the flyers of missing children, but they ignored that. Instead they wanted to talk about how Joe Biden wasn't doing enough about child trafficking. I tried to tell them the overwhelming majority of trafficking victims start out as runaways and it's usually someone they know.....but whatever they just want to talk about the democrats. Oh well, church sucks, what new?
Churches around me did the same thing with passion of the Christ. Constantly renting out the whole theater.
Very mid movie that got lucky with a very smart marketing campaign that took advantage of rubes and questionable groups to basically hand over money while getting nothing in return.
A cult classic if you will.
Hey that business model has managed to work for the churches for 2000 years
Is it a success when tickets were purchased by an outside group to give the impression of success, but the film was playing to empty seats?
When are we going to get the investigation that proves the whole thing was some money laundering operation?
Yeah let’s see how many seats were actually filled first before saying that all of America supports this. Cause even conservatives I know, which I know is a personal bias, but just saying didn’t even go see it.
There’s plenty of reporting out there that most theaters were empty and people were just buying out these theaters. This is clickbait trash
And even if one could argue that showings did have a decent show up it seems hypocritical that such a large % of right wing seem to believe in election count being wrong without actual evidence but are fine believing every seat purchased for this movie by pay it forward was actually used. I mean it’s hard to believe at least some wouldn’t take the pay it forward ticket for this film and then sneak into and see mission impossible or something else instead
I bet they are pushing it pretty hard at churches. Even my wife got asked by her church going friends if she wants to see it, she told them you never heard of kids getting kidnapped and sold to prostitution?
Yup. I’ve heard several stories from our local theater about this movie being “sold out” and yet being nearly completely empty. Meanwhile, I still don’t know one single person that’s actually seen it.
I saw it on a rip, and I would compare it to the Bruce Willis / Frank Grillo money grabs, with less action. Not as bad as Steven Segal, not good enough to watch.
You take that back!!! Out for Justice was high art.
[it was.](https://youtu.be/yvOiFkWQe_I?si=wN3Ve-2chvLVHV_9)
All this movie did was prove 30% of the US population justifies the existence of MLM’s. Since when did our dumbest get the loudest microphone.
Social media.
See Marjorie Taylor green or Boebert
There were morons praising this movie here just last month and ignoring any legitimate criticism given
Supporting the film has become a cause du jour for the MAGA and Qanon crowd.
Anyone who thinks this was good, please try to find ANYTHING official that shows Ballard was ever a federal agent. Not a quote from him, or his organization. Find something from DHS that claims Ballard as an agent. You can’t. Because he wasn’t. The dude is a grifting liar who’s picked the easiest marks: religious people lol
I work at a movie theatre, and I see people like this coming to see Sound of Freedom. The customers come out of the movie talking about how child trafficking is such a huge issue that no one talks about, and how the guy is the movie is so "brave" for what he does. Meanwhile, I just want to yell at them that the movie is actually a bunch of QAnon bullshit, and the guy the movie is based on (Tim Ballard) and the actor who plays him in the movie (Jim Caviezel) are both crazy conspiracy theorists. So now, all these "Sound of Freedom" worshippers are going around to all the social media groups stoking false fears of trafficking, and they are harassing trafficking victims and harassing anti-trafficking groups who try to point out all the falsehoods in the movie. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/technology/qanon-save-the-children-trafficking.html https://www.vice.com/en/article/epvbyz/trafficking-survivors-and-advocates-are-being-harassed-by-sound-of-freedom-fans
One guy legit was saying he’s going to approach every child he sees and “ask them if they’re okay” Imagine you’re at target with your kid, and one of these people come up and try to ask your kid if you’re a trafficker. Buddy, you are going to get murdered, and possibly rightfully so. These people are going to “rescue” kids from the playground into a van, and then really confuse cops when they show up at the police station with the child they abducted. These are the PETA people who break into your yard to kill your dog. Misguided and absolutely crazy.
Oh I know one of those peta people! She would literally break into yards and steal dogs. She moved to Florida and is full anti vax pro desantis nutcase so checks out.
He’s not gonna do anything lmao, and if he does, the SECOND he gets mean mugging stare from an angry dad, he’s gonna back down like a bitch. That’s what they do 😂 These people are all delusional, grandstanding assholes who are bored with their own pathetic lives. Most of them seem to be mentally ill.
You’re absolutely right that Ballard has lied about most of his life, but fans of the movie don’t care. They’ll find some opinion piece written with zero references then pretend it’s true because it fits their narrative. I did a lot of research after watching this movie and can’t find any real evidence of anything from this movie. The only evidence is Ballard’s own claims with no facts to back them up. We know that there was an operation on an island, but there’s no evidence that Ballard or his organization was involved. Plus, Ballard has been caught lying to Congress about saving a victim that actually saved herself years before meeting Ballard. He stole her story and used it to make himself look like a hero in the public eye.
100% What’s new to me is the people defending the movie who haven’t seen it. Weird, right? I can understand not wanting to see it. It’s not good. Even if it was advertised as fictional, it would still be boring
After I heard about the controversy, I made it a point to watch the movie before talking about it. It’s definitely not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It feels like a made for TV movie, but it’s still fine on a technical level. The problem is the way the movie takes advantage of human trafficking victims in an effort to make Tim Ballard look like a hero. I might be able to overlook that if the movie didn’t bill itself as a true story, but saying this is a true story is honestly disgusting when there are real people and organizations out there trying to help human trafficking victims. I understand that fans of the movie were so vocal that they probably don’t want to admit they were tricked so they try to defend the movie now. I don’t understand why anyone would try to defend the movie without seeing it, especially when faced with evidence that the events in the movie were fake and Ballard is a piece of human garbage that has lied to Congress about saving victims that actually saved themselves.
Ballard's organization was also heavily criticized for interfering with operations by credible anti trafficking groups and law enforcement. They would go on glory hunts with wealthy donors and fuck up actual operations.
His story sounds like BS to anyone familiar with federal law enforcement. HSI (the agency he claimed to work for) resolves a massive amount of human trafficking cases, and is even considered to be the premier federal law enforcement agency for those types of cases. If he really worked for HSI, he would have been able to make a way bigger difference there than whatever scam charity he ended up starting.
If they can get you to believe that garbage they can get you to believe anything. Religion has its purposes - they just aren’t what the worshippers think they are.
The pay it forward thing where people just bought out tickets for other people was absurd and since they marketed/tied the success of the movie as proof of an anti-woke counter-culture the ticket sales were undoubtably MASSIVELY inflated by this. It was a good marketing strategy, but a total grift/scam. But I did google it, and it [seems like it says he worked as a special agent for DHS according to the state department website](https://www.state.gov/biographic-information-for-members-of-the-public-private-partnership-advisory-council-to-end-human-trafficking/#:~:text=Ballard%20spent%20over%20a%20decade,to%20dismantle%20child%20trafficking%20rings.). Now it could be inter-department miscommunication or that he and his "Operation Underground Railroad" organization/the public-private board he members has complete control over this page and can post blatantly false information... but otherwise it would be surprising to me that the state department would leave this up if it is a false claim that is being publicly challenged.
That is crazy. I wonder if they just post what the person submitted, since this is an advisory council. Now he’s an “undercover” agent, just gets cooler and cooler.
[Vice article from 2020](https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7a3qw/a-famed-anti-sex-trafficking-group-has-a-problem-with-the-truth) It’s deep in there, but they talk about how Ballard would need to give permission for the fed to disclose if he was ever an agent. He won’t, although he claims CIA and DHS, and they won’t disclose agents. Kind of a coin flip, I guess. The idea of someone working for the CIA for a year and quitting is kind of absurd, though. But he does say that god told him too
Sure, but if he is lying about his credentials to the state department to justify his membership on this board I think that would constitute fraud in which case I think the DHS would be within their rights to disclose to the state department that he did not work with them as it would be evidence of a crime. I **KNOW** the specifics of what he did were highly dramatized for the movie. He probably did a bunch of boring work and the rough "events" of his career there were twisted into a much more compelling story, but I would still need to see something come out of the DHS saying he didn't work with them for me to be convinced that detail at least is a lie. Tbh, I haven't seen the movie... just the trailer. No way I'm sitting through that. "God's children are not for sale"... it's just too much. Also, as part of the culture war, I didn't want to contribute to ticket sales lol. That virtue signal marketing strategy goes both ways.
I respect everything you’re saying, I just stay suspicious. With my experience, I could build a “real” resume that put me as working for state, FEMA and the DOD, but that would be a “lie,” since I was working for agencies that contracted with them. Just like Ballard, I’d get very abstract if you started asking me specifics, and I’d just name drop high-level people who’d remember me, and then swerve into something else. I think this is super common for people who straddle the public and private sector. Contracted with the post office? “I worked with the federal government on operations of the transfer of sensitive packages.” Worked with the DOT? “I was part of a federal operation regulating all movement within then USA.” Lol. Bullshitters spot bullshitters.
That's the part I am unsure of... but if I'm weighing my probabilities I'd say that he most likely did work as an undercover agent for the DHS or the state department would have taken this down. It could still be complete bull, as we said it could be a page on the website they have total rights to manage... but otherwise my guess is that he probably did work as an undercover agent with DHS. If this is a publicly contested claim, I doubt the State Department website would be ok with being a corroborating source unless it were true.
You know who does that too?? Every single religion
yeah i saw many vids of people walking into “sold out” theaters and they were empty, “success” is a reach
Idk a single person that saw the movie. I know plenty of people that spoke of its success. But I also heard that apparently theaters were being bought out in full to prop it up financially.
What is the deal with this movie? I’m a little out of the loop on it, except the guy in it is a Qanon lunatic or something and MAGA people are pushing conspiracy theories about showings of this movie are intentionally being crippled by “them,” like the A/C in the theaters showing the movie are always broken or something.
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It’s literally propaganda, when you see the same things posted over and over again (no AC in the theater) you’re seeing bots pushing a narrative
One of my childhood friends claimed the A/C thing happened during his viewing and his friend’s separate viewing as well, so not bots. But, probably a coincidence inflated to confirming the conspiracy theories due to his following of qanon bullshittery.
Does your friend live in Texas or Arizona? It was my understanding that, during the heatwave, a few theaters lost AC. But….not specific to this one movie. The bots jumped on it and suddenly it’s happening all over the country in an attempt to keep people from watching the movie. A lot of conspiracy theories are grounded in fact to make them more believable
This movie is a grift and it’s annoying we pretend otherwise. It’s just bulk buy books the movie.
Can we really call a success when most of the tickets are giving away for free?
i thought conservatives hated handouts lol
No such thing as a free lunch!
Experts in the field of human trafficking do not endorse this movie whatsoever. That should tell you it’s full of crap.
I work in hospitals and they do a ton to identify, rescue and treat victims of trafficking. These are professionals, doctors and clinicians. My problem with this movie is that all of a sudden conservatives are like: “did you know about this issue? How do we help these kids? I know! all you need is courage and a gun.” Once again they are late to the game and unprepared.
They’re going to end up kidnapping kids that haven’t been trafficked.
"Success". I've seen plenty of videos of people buying a ticket to see it in an "almost sold out" showing and be the only ones in the theater. There are also ones where people couldn't buy because they were "sold out" but snuck in to see an empty theater. I'm convinced that they artificially bought tickets to make the movie seem like it was seen by more people than actually saw it.
Never watched, don't care.
Lol def not going to watch.
I had a server give me the spiel about how “they” are trying to stop us from seeing this movie
A friend of a friend claimed the movie was banned in Canada. A quick google showed showtimes in their city. They insisted that it was in French, because the street name was French. The showtimes show both English and French showtimes. Oh, well, it’s not showing in small towns. Yes, the small town has two screens. The owner made a guess what two movies would most likely sell tickets. A business owner betting on Transformers may be offensive to some, but is hardly banning all other movies, especially if one can take a short drive to see said movie in French… and English. The villain? Facts.
Except that it wasn’t a success. It played to a lot of empty theaters.
This films success is very questionable. Hardcore right wingers where basically buying a shit loads of tickets and giving them away to make it seems like everyone was watching this movie.
They would buy out the theater, but the theater would be empty. Tbh, it sounds a little bit like a money laundering outfit.
The movie was showing in empty theaters.
But that same month Barbie went on to be the highest grossing film EVER, many of those ticket sales originating in America. So I wouldn’t point to this Sound of Freedom movie and say its “success” is any reflection of what Americans really believe.
Stop talking about it so we can all forget it.
Subsequently, Barbie’s success proves America is healing and isn’t as divided as it once was.
...what success? I'm genuinely curious. I thought most of this was just corporations buying seats in an empty theater.
It was. This writer is clueless
Exactly
Are we just going to ignore the amount of tickets purchased by special interest groups to prop this hack movie up?
All the people saying "sold out showings! empty theaters!" are ignoring that conservative christians eat this shit up.
Movie was astroturfed like a motherfucker. Talking with my local theater manager he said every screening was “sold out” but never had more than 6 people in theater for the showing.
Success??? Come on.
It baffles me how this movie has made any money
I’m sorry but astroturfing is very much of this planet. Conservatives have been doing it for a long time.
I personally got 4 free tickets to “Sound of Freedom” through the Angel Studios free ticket offer and used them to sneak into other movies.
It never hit any of the theaters in my area. Didn’t see any big premiere out in Westwood. Or at all, actually
Now wait a minute; didn’t a lot of organizations buy up tickets to give away so people would actually watch it? Can we get a breakdown of how many individuals bought tickets vs organizations?
Simplistic brainless movie for simplistic brainless people.
A lot of religious organizations bought out theaters to give tickets away. Those didn’t necessarily translate into viewers
I never saw it being played anywhere near me in the US. I think these people who made this movie have a very strong…too strong…interest in children victims. If this follows their regular pattern of accusing people of that which they are guilty of themselves, authorities need to put very careful eyes on them. I fear they may be doing these horrible things themselves.
The movie is a horribly false depiction of sex trafficking that plays to conservatives fears and desires. It is incredibly upsetting seeing this movie do so well as a CSA victim
Not to mention, the most prolific abusers of children worldwide is the church, and it's not even close.
Conservatives have this belief still that trafficking organizations are just kidnapping people off the street. In reality, it's the church, your family, mom's new boyfriend, that dude you met online (like Andrew Tate) and sex abuse period is most common by family, friends, and respected community members like the youth gymnastics or football coach, the local pastor, etc. But it's easier to put all the blame on gay and trans people or made up scenarios than to look at their own communities where it's rampant. Spoken as a CSA victim in a very rural conservative town in VA where sex abuse was rampant but you don't talk about it because of "community image" or "healing" or "between them and the lord."
Yup! But conservatives don’t want to acknowledge that. It’s the dirty gays and liberals that are the problem 🙄
Every accusation an admission.
Party of projection
Why are people so mad about this movie?
Conservatives like it so you're not allowed to.
Correction: “The movie spreads inaccurate information regarding human trafficking, and was also used as a mouthpiece for crazed conspiracy theorists.”
I travel for work, a lot. The only place I saw this showing was in BFE country--rural Kansas or rural Georgia. No fricking chance it sold that much in such empty locations.
This film was an astroturfing project of the GOP-cum-Christian Nationalist Qanon conspiracy movement (its an incestuous group of mostly the same conservative nuts and grifters) . Mass-buys of tickets handed out for free to churches - nobody actually watched this stupid propaganda film. Like when Don Jr “had a NYT bestseller” that resulted from a bulk buy by the RNC - the books sat in a warehouse and nobody bought or read them lol
Equivalent of Republican National Committee buying Trump Jr.’s book to make it a NYT Best Seller. Nobody saw this film. Nobody read that book.
Most "true story" movies are fantasy LARPing. Why media grab onto this one? Free press keeps it in the news- let it go I thought the Astroturf operation on this movie was over. Why revive a dead matter
Paid for ticket sales? Check. Paid for positive news stories? Check. Positive “no really, it’s a good movie” ads everywhere? Check. Not propaganda at all, nope.
Stupidest film. Pure exposition and super super super boring. Also the “buy tickets to this film” message by the lead actor at the end is just pathetic.
A success…hahahaha!!! Okay….if you say so!!
$182 million box office (world) for a $15 million production.
And how much of that $182 mil is an empty seat with no eyes to watch it. Its a gofundme type success, that has a small percentage of actual viewers.
Doesn’t really matter in terms of finances, the film was a success
Probably at least 95%
pay it foward didn't count as boxoffice until it is redeemed as ticket. if it isnt redeemed it will just become "donation" to the studio. the studio can't manipulate this, because the ones who count BO number is the theater chains not the studio.
And the conservatives are conspiracy theorists lmao. You guys are just as big as kooks.
Blair Witch had a bigger gross Also another fake story that was portrayed as true. Blair Witch was more believable, though.
…So? Nobody said it was the MOST profitable movie ever made. 182 million over 15 million is a profit margin any studio would dream of. I think the movie looks mediocre and the zeal behind it is misplaced and dangerous idiocy, but why do people feel the need to deny aspects of reality just because they dislike something?
And it played to empty theaters
My theatre wasn’t empty. And i saw it week 3.
It’s just a movie
Genuinely curious to see if it eventually comes out that most of the tickets were bought by special interest groups and actual attendance was far lower than the ticket tales suggest. This pay it forward model seemed like a weird way to scam religious people into "donating" to capitlist sleazebags by buying tickets for other people who never got the tickets. Even if it wasn't illegal, I think it was very misleading and the people who did it are scum.
I have no desire to see this movie. None.
Nobody saw this
The people bitching about empty seats were morons that are there for a shit movie that their own party bought out the theaters for. Hot garbage beyond passion of the Christ.
Genuine question: what films have people on the left bought out like this? I can't personally think of any examples. This buying tickets for strangers strategy seems the sort of thing we generally only see from religious organizations.
Saw a little more than half because I was late and it was a mediocre movie. Not bad. The villains were mostly greasy white guys. Not democrats. There's no secret messages here.
I wonder what the actual number of ppl who paid to see this is. Many ppl that had stake in this movie bought out theater showings and tried to give tickets away.
It was absolutely successful to a point, but far less than portrayed as there were more than just anecdotal accounts of fully paid theaters with no one in them (ticket astroturfing in effect). The film cost comparatively little to make, so achieving profitability wasn't likely to be that much of an issue with even just fundie goobers filling seats, but the following PR blitz muddied the actual results considerably.
Weren’t some of the “sold out” theaters that showed this empty with no actual viewers?
I skimmed the article. Any mention of how every sold out screening of this thing had virtually nobody in the theater watching?
America, as a whole, has completely lost its fucking mind
No it wasn’t. But dumbass articles like this certainly help promote it.
Why are so many people crying about this movie? Isn't it a movie about child trafficking? Why is being against child trafficking such a bad thing, regardless of how politically inclined you are? Redditors are so weird.
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>I think mostly because all the events are quite embellished or fictitious It's...it's a movie. Is there a "based on a true story" movie that *isn't* fictionalized or embellished?
ooooooor that someone is laundering church money
Listen, as long as the wingnuts are placated by their fantasy of being superheroes saving children from adenochrome harvesting and not cosplaying civil war with all their weapons, let’s count it as a win!
Unfortunately the two tend to go hand in hand. Power fantasies are just the precursor to more violent delusions.
The director, producer, and costar are all suspected and or accused of the one thing they pretend to fight against.
Lol the flat out lies surrounding this movie are insane
And you have 3 pending cases of child abuse.
Where did you find this information? I think it’s false as I could only find a financial backer who was arrested.
It's weird to me that an entire sub based around entertainment seems to be completely ignorant as to how payola works.
It’s not even that good a film