“Sound of Freedom” will be available at no charge to Amazon’s domestic Prime Video subscribers beginning the day after Christmas, Dec. 26, 2023. The film, which debuted Friday to buy for $20 on most VOD platforms, had previously been available to stream (following its theatrical release) exclusively on Angel Studios’ own platform starting Oct. 13.
Even if one counts the VOD/download on-sale debut as the end of its “theatrical window,” that’s still a four-month period when it was mostly available only in theaters, which now qualifies as old-fashioned amid swiftly shrinking theatrical windows. As previously reported in TheWrap, DVD and Blu-Ray availability will begin on Nov.14. Finally, on Dec. 15 — five months after its Independence Day week theatrical debut — it’ll be available for digital rental. And now we know where it’ll land in its first streaming window.
Alejandro Monteverde’s “Sound of Freedom” was the biggest non-“Barbenheimer” story of the 2023 summer movie season. With a $184 million haul in North America, it domestically outgrossed the likes of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” Heck, it’ll still end up with more than the likely final total for “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.”
That was partially due to a unique pay-it-forward system where fans and moviegoers went online and bought tickets for other interested parties. The feature, starring Jim Caviezel as a federal agent who goes vigilante to travel overseas and rescue a boy from human traffickers, was a rare example of a unique distribution outlet fiddling with the rules and winning.
Beyond the pay-it-forward scheme, it was another example of a demographically specific event film that played mostly on a comparatively niche fanbase. As we learned with the later “Harry Potter” and “Twilight” sequels, if your fanbase is big enough, you can be a blockbuster by just playing to the fans.
Monteverde’s next picture, “Cabrini,” will open theatrically — courtesy of Angel Studios — on March 8, 2024, which is also National Women’s Day. Angel Studios released “After Death” on Oct. 27, with “The Shift” on tap for Dec. 1.
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