Latest news with #AngelStudios'
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Faith-Based ‘The King Of Kings', ‘The Chosen' With Hatsune Miku Anime, ‘Pride & Prejudice' Re-Release Indie Standouts Easter Weekend
Faith-based films drew audiences Easter weekend alongside the re-release of Pride & Prejudice and an anime from GKids in a crowded market that was challenging for traditional indies. Angel Studios' animated is in the no. 3 berth on 3,535 screens with $17.3 million in week 2 for a $45.3 million cume. (Season 5) Part 3, from Fathom Entertainment, also in week 2, grossed $1.8 million for an $11.6 million cum for a no. 9 spot.. Season 5 is now the highest grossing installment of the series, generating $42.4 million at the domestic box office. Parts 1-3 have a projected U.S. weekend of $2.6 million. More from Deadline 'Sinners' Finds Salvation At Easter Box Office With $45M+ No. 1 Opening Win - Sunday Update 'The Wedding Banquet' Director Andew Ahn On Leaning Into "Optimism And Joy" In New Reimagining 'The Shrouds' Is A Milestone For Distributor Sideshow: "We're All Pinching Ourselves We Get To Work" With David Cronenberg - Specialty Preview GKids' sits at no. 7 on 800 screens with a $2.76 million opening, the anime by studio based on Hatsune Miku: Colorful! mobile game about high school students finding their true feelings through music in an alternate world. Focus Features' rerelease of from 2005 is no. 8 with $2.7 million Bleecker Street's by Andrew Ahn opened to a weekend gross of $922.9k at 1,142 theaters. This is a reinterpretation of writer James Schamus and director Ang Lee's 1993 arthouse hit. Moviegoers Entertainment debuted Hindi in 315 theaters to a debut of $742.7k as per Comscore. Adapted from Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat's legal historical drama The Case That Shook The Empire. Stars Akshay Kumar. Briarcliff Entertainment opened animated family film in wide release at 1,500 locations to a debut of $525k. IFC Films' debuted to $175k in moderate release at 501 locations. Limited releases: David Cronenberg's is looking at an estimated $52.1k on 3 to 250 locations next weekend. A24's adventure fantasy grossed $52.2k at four theaters. Best of Deadline 'Ransom Canyon' Book Vs. Show Differences: From Quinn & Staten's Love Story To Yancy Grey's Plot Everything We Know About Netflix's 'Ransom Canyon' So Far 'Ransom Canyon' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The New Netflix Western Romance Series
Forbes
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Christian Films Dominate Box Office This Easter Week — Boosted By Conservative Influencers
Christian movies are dominating the box office this week, led by the animated hit 'The King of Kings,' which is backed by the studio behind the controversial 2023 smash 'Sound of Freedom' and is being promoted by right-wing influencers on social media, who have billed it as an anti-'woke' movie. "The King of Kings" grossed more than $14 million in its opening weekend. 'The King of Kings' finished second behind blockbuster 'The Minecraft Movie' at the box office this past weekend with $19.3 million, which is only about $200,000 behind the opening weekend of Angel Studios' 'Sound of Freedom.' Four of the top 10 films at the box office this week are faith-based movies, according to Box Office Mojo's latest daily totals, including all three parts of the television series 'The Chosen: Last Supper,' which distribution company Fathom Entertainment released in theaters. 'The King of Kings' is an animated film featuring a star-studded cast that follows writer Charles Dickens as he teaches his son about the life of Jesus Christ, while 'The Chosen: Last Supper' is the fifth season of the historical drama series that depicts Jesus's life. 'The King of Kings' had the biggest box office weekend for a biblical animated film, surpassing the Oscar-winning animated movie 'The Prince of Egypt,' which earned $14.5 million in its opening weekend in 1998. Some conservative influencers have championed 'The King of Kings' on social media, many of whom Angel Studios has reposted on X, though it's unclear whether the studio is working with them (Forbes has reached out to Angel Studios for comment). The studio has reposted four posts on X from right-wing commentator Benny Johnson over the past week, and the company's Chief Content Officer Jeff Harmon appeared on Johnson's YouTube show last week. In one of Johnson's posts, reposted by Angel Studios, he said the 'demand for faith-based, non-woke entertainment is undeniable,' citing the film's positive audience scores. In his interview with Harmon, Johnson repeatedly described 'The King of Kings' as counterprogramming to Disney's remake of 'Snow White,' which debuted in theaters last month amid a storm of controversy as conservative critics slammed it as 'woke.' Harmon criticized the 'race swapping' of 'Snow White' in his interview with Johnson—Disney cast Latina actress Rachel Zegler to portray the titular princess, who is white in the original movie—and criticized Hollywood for recycling 'junk food stories.' Angel Studios also reposted a post from Joey Mannario, a conservative commentator who has more than 600,000 followers on X, who said the studio 'NEVER misses when it comes to bringing quality entertainment without any wokeness.' The studio also reposted Anna Lulis, a conservative user with more than 80,000 followers, who said the film's success is evidence that 'culture is shifting.' 'The Kings of Kings' benefits from a famous cast—Oscar Isaac voices Jesus, while Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Marc Hamill, Pierce Brosnan and Forest Whitaker also star—but distributor Angel Studios has also employed some of the marketing tactics that made 'Sound of Freedom' a smash. The studio has employed a 'pay-it-forward' program, which it has done for many of its releases, that allows moviegoers to purchase a ticket for those who could not otherwise afford it. The studio also offered free tickets for children attending the movie with an adult for a limited time. Angel Studios co-founder Jordan Harmon told Variety the studio succeeded because 'people haven't been fulfilling this massive of an audience for that long in terms of the animated space.' Though 'The Chosen' is a television series, which are not commonly released in theaters, distributor Fathom Entertainment has found success with faith-based releases, including episodes of the popular show. The distributor released two episodes of the third season of 'The Chosen' in theaters in 2022, grossing $14.6 million, and it grossed $14.8 million in theaters last year after releasing three episodes of its fourth season in theaters. 'The Chosen' has a large viewer base: By the end of 2022, at least 18 million people had watched at least part of one episode, the New York Times reported, and the show's production was crowd-funded by thousands of people. 'The King of Kings' received generally positive reviews and has a 64% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. Multiple positive reviews described the movie as a 'serviceable' adaptation of a well-known story, while the New York Times review accused the filmmakers of capitalizing on an 'audience who senses a moral obligation to purchase tickets for every single retelling of Jesus's life.' In his interview with Johnson, Harmon alleged the Rotten Tomatoes score used to be as high as 80%, but accused reviewers who 'hate Jesus' and had a 'bad experience with religion' of writing bad reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score is a near-perfect 97%, and it is one of only 128 movies in history to receive the highest-possible A+ score from Cinemascore, which surveys moviegoers. Angel Studios notched its biggest hit to date in theaters in the summer of 2023 when 'Sound of Freedom' shocked the industry by becoming the tenth highest-grossing film of the year at the domestic box office with $184 million in North America and $250 million worldwide. The film was boosted by right-wing influencers and many Republican politicians, including President Donald Trump, who praised it on Truth Social and hosted a screening at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club. The movie drew scrutiny from critics who noted its star Jim Caviezel had reportedly spoken at events for QAnon, the conspiracy theory that the political and Hollywood elite are actually Satan-worshipping sex traffickers. The film depicted the anti-sex trafficking organization, Operation Underground Railroad, though a Vice investigation found in 2020 the group had exaggerated its role in rescue missions and that law enforcement agencies described their relationships to the group as 'insubstantial.' It Was a Very Good Box Office Weekend for Jesus (IndieWire)
Telegraph
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Charles Dickens wasn't a good Christian – but he's turned Jesus into box office gold
Angel Studios' new animated film The King of Kings is an unusual Biblical biopic that depicts the life of Jesus in the form of stories told by Charles Dickens – voiced by Kenneth Branagh – to his young son Walter. I am not surprised that it has done record-breaking business for a Biblical animation in its opening weekend, taking almost $20 million in the US alone. It's not just that those two bearded master-storytellers, Jesus and Dickens, are both always good box-office in their own right. It's that the combination of the two is so appropriate: anyone with even a glancing knowledge of Dickens's works will feel that few novelists were more attuned to the values of Christ. Dickens would have thoroughly approved of this film as a means of familiarising children with the life of Jesus. The tots who spent Sunday enjoying the colourful animation and the exuberance of its voice cast – Oscar Isaac as Jesus, Mark Hamill as Herod, Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate, Ben Kingsley as Caiaphas – will have very different memories of their childhood introduction to the Bible than those of Arthur Clennam, the hero of Dickens's Little Dorrit. 'His mother, stern of face and unrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible – bound, like her own construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and straitest boards, with … a wrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of the leaves – as if it, of all books! were a fortification against sweetness of temper, natural affection, and gentle intercourse.' The young Arthur is left with 'no more real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New Testament than if he had been bred among idolaters'. Dickens despised the acts of wrath and spite that pervade the Old Testament: 'Half the misery and hypocrisy of the Christian world (as I take it) comes from a stubborn determination to refuse the New Testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force the Old Testament into alliance with it', he once wrote. The New Testament was his constant companion – 'It was the book of all others he read most and which he took as his one unfailing guide in his life,' recalled George Dolby, the manager of his reading tours. 'One of my most constant and most earnest endeavours has been to exhibit in all my good people some faint reflections of the teachings of our great Master, and unostentatiously to lead the reader up to those teachings as the great source of all moral goodness,' he wrote in a letter in 1861. 'All my strongest illustrations are derived from the New Testament: all my social abuses are shown as departures from its spirit.' Such was Dickens's reverence for the New Testament that in the late 1840s he wrote his own version of the narrative: a document of 100-odd pages entitled The Life Of Our Lord, which is the basis for the new film. As he boasted to a friend, he would read it to his children 'long before they could read, and no young people can have had an earlier knowledge of, or interest in, that book. It is an inseparable part of their earliest remembrances.' A Child's History Of England, another work that began as something Dickens wrote for his own children, became a published book. But Dickens not only refused to make money out of The Life Of Our Lord, but seemed to feel that something of its sacred nature would be spoiled if anybody outside his family so much as glimpsed it: he stipulated that after his death nobody should 'even hand the manuscript, or a copy of it, to anyone to take out of the house'. The manuscript was left to Dickens's son Sir Henry Fielding Dickens on condition that he not publish it in his lifetime. Sir Henry died in 1933 after being hit by a motorcycle and, just seven weeks later, Time magazine reported that his widow had sold the manuscript to the Daily Mail for $210,000; it became a bestseller when published in book form in the US. With its narrative largely derived from the Gospel of Luke and the Sermon of the Mount in Matthew, the book is not always theologically sound: 'And because He did such good, and taught people how to love God and how to hope to go to Heaven after death, he was called Our Saviour', Dickens writes at one point, skipping over the fairly important detail that Jesus saved us by atoning for our sins through his own death. The emphasis throughout on Jesus as a source of wisdom and a doer of good works rather than a divine figure was perhaps a necessary simplification for children, but also seems to have reflected Dickens's own priorities. He seems to have wrestled with his faith far less than most intelligent people of his age. If he would have found his contemporary Tennyson's notion of 'faith in honest doubt' incomprehensible, this may have been because he regarded Christ as an exemplar rather than a redeemer. Jesus's wisdom was not valuable as a proof of his divinity; his divinity was of value in that it was the origin of his wisdom. Unlike Arthur Clennam's mother, Dickens's parents had had little taste for Biblical instruction or anything much to do with religion, and what seems to have drawn him to Christianity were the kindnesses he witnessed carried out in the name of faith, not least by the Anglican clergyman who taught him to read as a boy. A prodigiously energetic philanthropist, with an especial zeal for assisting in the reformation of fallen women, he regarded the doctrinal disputes that preoccupied the clergymen of his era as wasting time that could be spent on practical good works. Of course, Dickens could not always live up to his Christian ideals. He treated his wife Catherine abominably (incidentally, as voiced by Uma Thurman, she is depicted in the new film as a wasp-waisted, contented helpmeet to Dickens rather than the usual put-upon drudge) and committed adultery with his much younger girlfriend Nelly Ternan. Far from honouring his father and mother, he caricatured them mercilessly as the selfish Mr Dorrit and the wittering Mrs Nickleby. And his insistence on Christ-like forbearance even towards the wicked did not stop him calling the police on people for swearing or urinating in the street. Still, there was more than a practical aspect to his Christianity. He said his prayers twice a day and was a far more regular churchgoer as an adult than he had been in childhood. For a time he attended the Essex Street Unitarian chapel in the Strand, although his waxing and waning Unitarianism seems to have depended on his admiration for various specific ministers. For the bulk of his life he practised as a conventional Anglican. He did not much care for Roman Catholicism, even – despite his personal loathing of Henry VIII – making the Pope the villain of the piece in his account of the Reformation in A Child's History of England. (He wrote the book, he said privately, to prevent his son from getting 'hold of any conservative or High Church notions'). He had little time for dissenters too. However much he intended to promulgate New Testament teachings through the 'good people' in his novels, the fact is that nobody takes much notice of his 'good people'; we read Dickens for the comic characters, the hypocrites, villains and self-deceivers, and so the characters who go about religion the wrong way are often far more vivid than those who practise his ideals. He came up with one of his most memorable examples in his very first novel: Stiggins, the perpetually drunk Methodist preacher in The Pickwick Papers. (On being offered a drink by Sam Weller: 'I despise them all. If – if – there is any one of them less odious than another, it is the liquor called rum. Warm, my dear young friend, with three lumps of sugar to the tumbler'). It is a sure sign of Stiggins's misplaced values in the eyes of Dickens, who believed very much that charity begins at home, that he has established a 'society for providing the infant negroes in the West Indies with flannel waistcoats'. Then there is the Reverend Mr Chadband, the gluttonous, penny-pinching, blackmailing Evangelical clergyman in Bleak House, with his surreal sermons about the need to find inner truth (emphatically pronounced 'Terewth'). Rather than give practical help to young Jo, the orphaned crossing-sweeper, he attributes his lack of money, and indeed parents, to his impiety: 'I say this brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is that light?... It is the light of Terewth.' People who use religion as an excuse for cruelty are satirised by Dickens in the form of the Murdstones in David Copperfield; David recalls going to church with Miss Murdstone as a boy, she 'mumbling the responses, and emphasising all the dread words with a cruel relish … If I move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, [she] pokes me with her prayer-book, and makes my side ache.' This is not at the level of the terrifying cruelty carried out in the name of religion by, say, the schoolmaster Mr Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre, but in its low-key way it reminds us how easily religious hypocrisy can make a child's life a misery. 'What such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance,' observes kindly Dr Chillip to David, 'And do you know I must say … that I DON'T find authority for Mr and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament?' Such mockery of religious hypocrisy led, as it always does, to accusations that Dickens was mocking religion itself. He defended himself, with the prickliness typical of his responses to any criticism, in a preface to a reissue of Pickwick: 'Lest there be any well-intentioned persons who do not perceive the difference between religion and the cant of religion, piety and the pretence of piety… let them understand that it is always the latter, and never the former, which is satirised here.' It is perhaps easier to laugh at Dickens's religious hypocrites than it is to take seriously the gobbets of pious reflection with which his novels are flecked. There is something repellent about Dr Woodcourt badgering Jo into reciting the Lord's Prayer as he lies dying in Bleak House ('Jo, can you say what I say? … Our Father…' 'Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir'). Some people will find it touching when the dying Dick cries 'God bless you!' to Oliver Twist ('it was the first [blessing] that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through … his after life, he never once forgot it'); others will find it emetic. There will be similar mixed responses to the religious framing of Pip's belated recognition of decent values, including the worth of good old Joe, in Great Expectations ('I lay there, penitently whispering, 'O God bless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man!'') But most readers will be won over by Dickens's conspicuously decent Christian characters: the church organist Tom Pinch, whose delight in music as an expression of faith recalls that of Trollope's Mr Harding as a rejection of puritanism; the kind clergyman who rescues Little Dorrit when she gets lost in London's mazy streets and is rewarded hundreds of pages later by being permitted to marry her to Arthur. Dickens's most church-centred novel was his last, the uncompleted Mystery of Edwin Drood. His ambiguous attitude to organised religion is summed up in his portrayal of those who work at Cloisterham Cathedral, a troubled and forbidding place. But if the choirmaster John Jasper turns out to be an opium addict, sex pest and probable murderer, the muscular Christianity of the Minor Canon of Cloisterham, Mr Crisparkle, is presented as wholly admirable, especially when dealing with the grasping professional philanthropist Mr Honeythunder. Politically radical in so many ways, Dickens nevertheless believed that it was at least sometimes possible for the established church to embody the true values of Christ. 'This curious and sentimental hold of the English Church upon him increased with years,' noted GK Chesterton. 'In the book he was at work on when he died he describes the Minor Canon, humble, chivalrous, tender-hearted, answering with indignant simplicity the froth and platform righteousness of the sectarian philanthropist. He upholds Canon Crisparkle and satirises Mr Honeythunder. Almost every one of the other Radicals, his friends, would have upheld Mr Honeythunder and satirised Canon Crisparkle.' Cloisterham is the name Dickens used in the book for Rochester, where he spent his final years and died in 1870; although he had expected to be buried in the cathedral there, public opinion demanded that he be interred in Westminster Abbey. As for The King of Kings, I think Dickens would have been very pleased with it. He had an ego to match the size of his genius, and could even brag about the depth of his humility: 'There cannot be many men, I believe, who have a more humble veneration for the New Testament, or a more profound awareness of its all-sufficiency, than I have,' he wrote to a clergyman acquaintance in 1856. The idea of 21st-century children learning about Jesus through Dickens would have delighted him; the idea of them learning about Dickens through Jesus perhaps even more.
USA Today
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
'The King of Kings' has moviegoers flocking to theaters: What to know about biblical epic
'The King of Kings' has moviegoers flocking to theaters: What to know about biblical epic "The King of Kings" has yet to hit the silver screen, but the film is already earning moviegoers' blessing. The animated biblical epic, which retells the life story of Jesus Christ, debuts in theaters this weekend. "Moon Knight" star Oscar Isaac voices Christ alongside a star-studded cast that includes Uma Thurman and Pierce Brosnan. The film, loosely based on the Charles Dickens book "The Life of our Lord," has already generated over $7.8 million in presales, according to a Monday press release. The Seong-ho Jang-directed movie is brought to the big screen courtesy of "Sound of Freedom" distributor Angel Studios. "'The King of Kings is finding incredible support from audiences and theaters alike, who are passionately seeking content that is both entertaining and faith-affirming," said Brandon Purdie, global head of theatrical distribution and brand development at Angel Studios, in a statement. Here's everything you need to know about the film. When does 'The King of Kings' come out? "The King of Kings" will be released in theaters on April 11. How to get tickets to 'The King of Kings' Moviegoers can search for local showtimes and purchase tickets via the official Angel Studios website. Additionally, fans can preorder tickets online for a chance to enter a $100,000 giveaway that includes a 10-day trip to London and Israel and a home theater package featuring an 83" smart TV, a Sonos sound system, a Nintendo Switch bundle and more. Younger viewers can potentially watch "The King of Kings" free of charge via Angel Studios' "Kids Go Free" campaign. Families can receive up to one free children's ticket with the purchase of an adult ticket by visiting and using the code "KIDSGOFREE." Watch the trailer for 'The King of Kings' Is 'The King of Kings' for kids? "The King of Kings" is rated PG for "thematic material," "violent content" and "some scary moments," according to the film's official trailer. 'The King of Kings' cast Oscar Isaac as Jesus Christ Kenneth Branagh as Charles Dickens Uma Thurman as Catherine Dickens Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate Mark Hamill as King Herod Forest Whitaker as Peter Ben Kingsley as High Priest Caiaphas 'The King of Kings' follows Angel Studios' controversial 'Sound of Freedom' Angel Studios, a Utah-based film distributor specializing in "stories that amplify light to mainstream audiences," scored a box-office hit in 2023 with the biographical drama "Sound of Freedom." The crime thriller starring Jim Caviezel generated over $250 million at the global box office. The film, which draws upon former federal agent Tim Ballard's crusade to save children from sex trafficking, also sparked controversy for Caviezel's views on far-right conspiracy theories. 'Breaks my heart': 'Sound of Freedom' director addresses controversies During an appearance on Steve Bannon's podcast to promote the film, Caviezel made mention of "adrenochrome," a hormone that QAnon adherents say global elites harvest from child victims as an allegedly life-extending elixir. "Sound of Freedom" does not mention QAnon in its portrayal of child trafficking. QAnon is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an "umbrella term for a sprawling spiderweb of right-wing internet conspiracy theories with antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ elements that falsely claim the world is run by a secret cabal of pedophiles" who worship Satan, abduct children and are plotting against President Donald Trump. Contributing: Marco della Cava, USA TODAY
Asharq Al-Awsat
09-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Robert Pattison Sci-fi ‘Mickey 17' Opens in 1st Place, but Profitability is a Long Way Off
'Parasite' filmmaker Bong Joon Ho's original science fiction film 'Mickey 17' opened in first place on the North American box office charts. According to studio estimates Sunday, the Robert Pattinson-led film earned $19.1 million in its first weekend in theaters, which was enough to dethrone 'Captain America: Brave New World' after a three-week reign. Overseas, 'Mickey 17' has already made $34.2 million, bringing its worldwide total to $53.3 million. But profitability for the film is a long way off: It cost a reported $118 million to produce, which does not account for millions spent on marketing and promotion. A week following the Oscars, where 'Anora' filmmaker Sean Baker made an impassioned speech about the importance of the theatrical experience – for filmmakers to keep making movies for the big screens, for distributors to focus on theatrical releases and for audiences to keep going – 'Mickey 17' is perhaps the perfect representation of this moment in the business, or at least an interesting case study. It's an original film from an Oscar-winning director led by a big star that was afforded a blockbuster budget and given a robust theatrical release by Warner Bros., one of the few major studios remaining. But despite all of that, and reviews that were mostly positive (79% on RottenTomatoes), audiences did not treat it as an event movie, and it may ultimately struggle to break even. Originally set for release in March 2024, Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the Oscar-winning 'Parasite' faced several delays, which he has attributed to extenuating circumstances around the Hollywood strikes. Based on the novel 'Mickey7' by Edward Ashton, Pattinson plays an expendable employee who dies on missions and is re-printed time and time again. Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo also star. It opened in 3,807 locations domestically where it performed best in New York and Los Angeles. Premium large format showings, including IMAX screens, also accounted for nearly half of its opening weekend. Internationally, it did especially well in Korea, where it made an estimated $14.6 million. Second place went to 'Captain America: Brave New World,' which added $8.5 million from 3,480 locations in North America and $9.2 million internationally. Its global total currently rests at $370.8 million. The Walt Disney Studios is on track to become the first studio to cross $1 billion in 2025 sometime this week. Holdovers 'Last Breath,' 'The Monkey' and 'Paddington in Peru' rounded out the top five. The weekend also had several other newcomers in 'In the Lost Lands,' a fantasy film from Paul W.S. Anderson starring Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista, and Angel Studios' 'Rule Breakers,' about Afghani girls on a robotics team. Neon upped the theater count for 'Anora' to nearly 2,000 screens after it won five Oscars on Sunday, including best picture, best director and best actress. It earned an estimated $1.9 million (up 595% from last weekend), bringing its total grosses to $18.4 million. According to data from Comscore, the 2025 box office as a whole is up 1% from where it was last year on this weekend and down 34.2% from the last pre-pandemic box office year of 2019.
