Nolte: ‘Sound of Freedom’ Soars to $83 Million as ‘Dead Reckoning’ Slips

Sound of Freedom is no flash in the pan. In its second weekend, the Angel Studios’ phenomenon grossed another $24.7 million, which is an astonishing 26 percent increase over its debut weekend. Currently, THE MOVIE DISNEY DUMPED sits at $83.2 million.

Never forget that the Disney Grooming Syndicate owned Sound of Freedom and then tried to disappear it. Because Jim Caviezel doesn’t age, it’s hard to tell, but Sound of Freedom wrapped in 2018, more than five years ago. When Disney acquired 20^th Century Fox in 2019, Disney acquired Sound of Freedom, a movie that is about to become one of the most profitable independent movies of all time.

Obviously, a demonic company like Disney, a company dedicated to grooming kids by sexualizing children’s content with homosexuality, transsexuals, drag queens, and transvestites, does not want anything to do with a movie that depicts the sex trafficking of children as a bad thing. Disney is determined to normalize sex with children, not reinforce the idea that a child’s innocence must be protected. So Disney shelved Sound of Freedom and sat on it. It took five years for the producers to get it back.

Well, because the arc of history bends toward justice, the fetishists at Disney are about to lose a couple hundred million dollars on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Cucking Indiana Jones with a Sexless Co-Star No One Finds Appealing. At the same time, Sound of Freedom has become a money-printing machine.

Everything after about $35 million is pure profit for Sound of Money — er, I mean Sound of Freedom. Already, the people behind this blockbuster have split about $50 million with theaters. That’s $25 million clear and counting.

With its theatrical run far from over, Sound of Freedom’s domestic haul has already topped all but 24 of last year’s biggest-grossing films, including Scream (2022), Morbius, the Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Woman King, Death on the Nile, etc.

Elsewhere at this weekend’s box office, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One came in below its $90 to $100 million projection with an $80 million haul over an extended five-day opening. If you do not adjust for inflation, that’s a franchise record. Twenty-three years ago, Mission: Impossible II opened to $79 million. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $140 million today.

The good news for Dead Reckoning is the overseas box office. After just five days, by Monday, it should have a worldwide haul of around $240 million. For context, that $240 million nearly ties the worldwide gross of Dial of Kathleen Kennedy’s Latest Franchise-Killing Dud, after 16 days and two full weekends of release.

The bad news for Dead Reckoning is that its production budget is a reported $290 million. Add another $100 million or so for promotion, and you’re pretty close to the reported $430 million the Disney Grooming Syndicate spent on Dial of Dud.

In its third weekend, Dial of Watch Us Emasculate Your Childhood Hero grossed just $11 million for a domestic total of a pathetic $145 million. Kathleen Kennedy’s latest failure won’t come close to $200 million domestic or $500 million worldwide. Break-even is over $800 million.

This is what happens to a studio when it becomes a slave to identity politics, fetishes, and perversions.

Dead Reckoning’s fate will be revealed next weekend. The reviews and word of mouth are about as good as it gets. Oppenheimer and Barbie open next weekend, which is serious competition but not direct competition in the action arena.

Everyone was expecting Top Gun: Maverick numbers for Dead Reckoning, but Maverick was something entirely different. No one had seen a Top Gun movie in 35 years. Moviegoers were curious about what had happened to “Maverick” and “Iceman.” Who are they now? How has their world changed? There’s a big difference between that and another one of those Mission: Impossible movies.

Hollywood has franchised me out. I have full faith Dead Reckoning is non-woke and entertaining. That has nothing to do with my lack of excitement. My enthusiasm gap comes from the fact that I feel like I’ve already seen Dead Reckoning two or three times already, back when it was called Fallout, Rogue Nation, and Ghost Protocol.

Sound of Freedom is the way forward. A modest budget attached to an original story about a topic (be it falling in love or sex trafficking) normal people care about. All you have to do is execute the story well and not undermine it with off-putting gay sex, lectures, shaming, or any other type of woketardery.

Sound of Freedom isn’t making a fortune because it’s Christian-themed. That certainly helps in an overwhelmingly Christian country, but only a handful of Christian-themed movies have grossed over $80 million. No, it’s making money for the same reason Top Gun: Maverick made money. Normal people love movies, but Hollywood has stopped making movies for normal people. Normal people want to be moved, inspired, transported, and engrossed in well-told stories populated with interesting characters who are not defined by their racial identity or sexual habits. Nothing violates the storytelling spell more than scolding, virtue-signaling, two guys kissing, or a sense of smugness.

This isn’t a difficult formula.

Hollywood managed to accomplish this for, oh, say, about a hundred years.

This strike that has shut down Hollywood is the first time in five years Hollywood has given the public what it wants: no more Hollywood products.

Sound of Freedom is the box office hit of the year, and Disney, which has lost close to a billion dollars on its last eight feature films, gave it up. If that doesn’t put a smile on your face…

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.