The Jim Caviezel film Sound of Freedom made a splash at the box office after seemingly coming out of nowhere. However, it had a bumpy road to release after its initial producers, 20th Century Fox, had been acquired by Disney, and the film would wait to be unveiled after crowdfunding gave it a new life. Sound of Freedom is one of the notable films of the summer as it rose out of obscurity to garner around $130 million in its domestic run while hoping to bring awareness to a heavy subject akin to movies like Taken, Skin Trade, and the Academy Award-winning Spotlight.
The film’s distributor, Angel Studios, has recently announced their plans to expand their screenings into worldwide markets. According to The Hollywood Reporter, on Wednesday, the studio “announced release dates for 21 markets, including the U.K., Australia, Spain, South Africa and a host of countries in Latin America. It begins its foreign run next month.” The movie gained notoriety by being one of the rare small productions from a non-Hollywood studio that was able to challenge the sales of big-budget summer tentpole movies like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. On July 19, the movie crossed the $100 million mark and remained at a pace that even surpassed Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
Jared Geesey, Angel’s senior VP of global distribution, stated, “Since Sound of Freedom launched in the U.S., demand has been building around the world in dozens of regions and languages. Child trafficking is a global issue, and we hope to build on the incredible momentum here in the States and share the film’s powerful message worldwide.”
The dates that Angel Studios have announced include openings on: Aug. 18 in South Africa, followed by Australia and New Zealand on Aug. 24. It rolls out across Latin America on Aug. 31, including in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela. It goes out Sept. 1 in the U.K./Ireland and on Oct. 11 in Spain.
The synopsis via THR reads, “Directed and written by Alejandro Monteverde, Sound of Freedom stars The Passion of the Christ’s Jim Caviezel as the real-life Tim Ballard, who worked as an agent for the Department of Homeland Security before embarking on his own quest to bring child traffickers to justice (Ballard founded his own anti-trafficking organization, dubbed Operation Underground Railroad).
Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp, José Zúñiga and Eduardo Verástegui co-star (Verástegui is also a producer).”