The billion euros that Barbie has raised and the 400 that Oppenheimer has achieved so far have made Hollywood believe that it is worth betting on the cinema.
And it does well because, in parallel to these two blockbuster hits, two other titles have broken records. Impossible Mission: Mortal Judgment, Part 1, in fourth position at the box office, already computes a turnover of 235 million euros. But even more notable is the case of Sonido de libertad, a film that has not yet been released in Spain but has been placed in third place at the US box office.
It is an independent tape, which cost 12 million euros and has already raised 111 million. The most astonishing thing is that the film, directed by the Mexican Alejandro Monteverde and produced by his compatriot, the actor Eduardo Verástegui, was made in 2018. That year it was sold to a Fox subsidiary, but when the studio was acquired by Disney was left off the release list. Verástegui bought the rights from Disney, spent five years looking for a way to get it to theaters, and in the end gave it to Angel Studios, a Mormon-affiliated company based in Utah, which amassed a fortune removing swear words from blockbusters and then launch to distribute Christian content on platforms and VoD.
Based on the alleged exploits of an immigration agent, Tim Ballard, who is credited with breaking up an international child prostitution ring (something the government can never confirm or deny because it is classified information), Sound of Freedom features Jim Caviezel in the title role, accompanied by a cast that includes Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp and Verástegui himself.
Constructed as a thriller, the film received harsh criticism from American media such as The New York Times and Rolling Stones, but it was also supported by celebrities such as Alejandro Sanz, Luis Fonsi, Jewel and Mel Gibson. It is that Verástegui and Angel Studios have turned the film into a good cause whose objective is not to entertain but to spread a message. At the end of each projection, a video is shown in which Caviezel, who incarnated Jesus in The Passion of the Christ (another phenomenon that in 2004 raised more than 550 million euros), addresses the audience to ask them to participate in the campaign to spread the film by buying tickets to give away in order to promote the cause against child prostitution. This has led to many screenings being sold out, despite the fact that more than half of the seats were empty.
The data is only part of the controversy that has been generated around the film, since there is no shortage of those who accuse it of being a vehicle for conspiracy theories to promote false theories, such as the one that ensures that Democratic politicians are behind the kidnapping of children to obtain from them a substance, adrenochrome, which they make with their blood. As ridiculous as this may seem, the accusation has always been one of the workhorses of QAnon, the movement that has supported Donald Trump’s presidency from the networks and of which Caviezel himself has declared himself a follower.
Other delusional theories about child trafficking have been part of digital fevers, such as pizzagate, which claimed that a Washington DC pizzeria was the headquarters of a pedophile organization. And also the one that argued that the Internet sales chain Wayfair sent children instead of furniture.
Although they have certainly benefited from the support of this powerful sector of American society, both Eduardo Verástegui, a pro-abortion activist and outspoken Trump supporter, and Angel Studios executives have denied any ties to them. The same has been done by Tim Ballard, also a Mormon, who has been accused by Vice magazine of having exaggerated his achievements, although he recently assured that adrenochrome is something real.
