The Sound of Freedom and the smell of success
Zachary Faria
Video Embed
Sound of Freedom wasn’t about superheroes, and it didn’t have excessive CGI, a massive budget, or characters from beloved movie franchises. It just had a compelling story about a real-world problem.
And now it has box-office success as well.
BIDEN’S DEFICITS THREATEN ECONOMIC DOOM
The movie, based on true stories about former Department of Homeland Security agent Tim Ballard and child sex trafficking rings in Colombia and other countries, had a budget of just $14.5 million. The movie itself was well made and engaging, with just a few corny lines of dialogue and the brief poor CGI of a helicopter negatively standing out over its 131-minute run time.
By the July 15-16 weekend, the film had grossed nearly $85.5 million at the U.S. box office, putting it in 18th place for the year so far. Compare that to some of Hollywood’s latest lazy entries. Disney trotted out the corpse of the Indiana Jones franchise, showing moviegoers that the franchise was very much dead. As of the July 15-16 weekend, Indy posted a domestic box office of $145 million on an estimated production budget of $294 million, not counting marketing.
Similarly, The Flash posted $106 million on a production budget of $200 million last month as Warner Bros. tried to revive its failing superhero universe with actor Ezra Miller in between his bouts of criminality. That $200 million seemingly only bought CGI worse than that in Sound of Freedom. Sound of Freedom also outgrossed the Shazam! sequel from Warner Bros.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Hollywood’s idea of “safe” movies, whether they be franchise retreads, remakes, or yet another superhero flick, is increasingly piling up a record of failures. Sound of Freedom didn’t succeed because it had a massive budget or an 81-year-old Harrison Ford. It was simply a compelling, heart-wrenching rescue thriller with a new story to tell.
In other words, it was a good, original, unique movie. Maybe some of these major studios could save some money trying to do that instead of giving us big-budget bombs.