Sound of Freedom || Discussion of The Movie And Its Producers Should be HERE and HERE ONLY || The Report Button Is Your Friend || Keep It Civil

[MrHardapple]

I think Indy 5 and MI:7 are pretty much a done deal.

[Issac Newton]

 

 

[Issac Newton]

Just now, Issac Newton said:

 

 

will be released in South Africa from August 18 and Australia and New Zealand from August 24. The film will hit cinemas in the following territories from August 31: Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. The film will receive subsequent releases in the UK and Ireland from September 1 and Spain from October 11. 

[WittyUsername]

So, it’s been confirmed by now that the box office numbers have been artificially inflated, right? 

[titanic2187]

25 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

So, it’s been confirmed by now that the box office numbers have been artificially inflated, right? 

At least Paul Schrader confirmed his showing this past weekend was full of people. 

[WittyUsername]

10 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

At least Paul Schrader confirmed his showing this past weekend was full of people. 

Did he show a screenshot to prove this? 

[titanic2187]

6 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

Did he show a screenshot to prove this? 

If you have already something in mind to believe, no amount of screenshot can reverse that course.

[WittyUsername]

11 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

If you have already something in mind to believe, no amount of screenshot can reverse that course.

I mean, a screenshot of a packed theater would be a start. I’ve been hearing reports about weirdos buying out empty screenings and giving away free tickets. 

[titanic2187]

4 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

I mean, a screenshot of a packed theater would be a start. I’ve been hearing reports about weirdos buying out empty screenings and giving away free tickets. 

Yes, I believe there is but the degree of astroturfing is widely exaggerated. Probably can't even boost BO by more than 10%. Also the report of astroturfing was mostly from social media, I haven't seen any major media outlets actually report or at least try to verify on the astroturfing.  

 

The movie is released in a country where there are 30% of the population that still go to church once a week. 74m people voted for Trump. It is a mass market for Angel Studio to tap into and their marketing have been targeting these crowd. A demo that many of us would probably have no connection or interaction in real life. Combined with MI7 underperformance. All data align with each other. It is hard to convince me the BO isn't 90% real, until proven otherwise. 

 

 

 

[PlatnumRoyce]

3 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

or at least try to verify on the astroturfing.  

The Wrap reached out to 3 smaller exhibitors for content and got pretty firm denials of "empty screenings" style claims (though we also learned that "under the hood" detail that pay it forward tickets look identical to normally purchased ones from exhibitor side). 

Some of the trades have passed along antonymous grumbling from other studios but nothing actually concrete/confirmed seems to exist. 

 

[WittyUsername]

3 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

Yes, I believe there is but the degree of astroturfing is widely exaggerated. Probably can't even boost BO by more than 10%. Also the report of astroturfing was mostly from social media, I haven't seen any major media outlets actually report or at least try to verify on the astroturfing.  

 

The movie is released in a country where there are 30% of the population that still go to church once a week. 74m people voted for Trump. It is a mass market for Angel Studio to tap into and their marketing have been targeting these crowd. A demo that many of us would probably have no connection or interaction in real life. Combined with MI7 underperformance. All data align with each other. It is hard to convince me the BO isn't 90% real, until proven otherwise. 

 

 

 

I did see CNN and CBS report on it, so there’s that.
 

I don’t doubt that there are plenty of nuts who would go out to see this, but the way it jumped ahead like it did in its second weekend is rather unusual. 

[von Kenni]

6 minutes ago, titanic2187 said:

Yes, I believe there is but the degree of astroturfing is widely exaggerated. Probably can't even boost BO by more than 10%. Also the report of astroturfing was mostly from social media, I haven't seen any major media outlets actually report or at least try to verify on the astroturfing.  

 

The movie is released in a country where there are 30% of the population that still go to church once a week. 74m people voted for Trump. It is a mass market for Angel Studio to tap into and their marketing have been targeting these crowd. A demo that many of us would probably have no connection or interaction in real life. Combined with MI7 underperformance. All data align with each other. It is hard to convince me the BO isn't 90% real, until proven otherwise. 

 

 

 

 

You need a some sort of centralized push to get the ball rolling in the beginning which isn't a fake grassroots movements if it becomes one afterwards (extreme example might be Blair Witch Project). I lead a crowdfunding project once raising millions that was the biggest in Europe at the time and we had around 25% pre-raised when it officially started which fuelled into first million being raised in the first 45 minutes while I was still being interviewed in the national radio. It got the network effect started and SoF marketing has similar dynamics but that 10% sounds more in the right ball park in its case.

 

PS. I had to look up astroturfing earlier and was again wondering, why? Why not just say fake grassroots movement?

[titanic2187]

2 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

I did see CNN and CBS report on it, so there’s that.
 

I don’t doubt that there are plenty of nuts who would go out to see this, but the way it jumped ahead like it did in its second weekend is rather unusual. 

CNN and CBS only report that there are claims of astroturfing but neither actually verify the claim. Wrap did their verification and the theater chain denied the astroturfing claim but those are small theater chain. The major chain like AMC has come out and denied the empty hall claim.

 

Yeah it is unusual to have the movie to jump of second weekend, but considering all the right-wing "celebrity" like Elon Musk and Trump came out to support the movie mostly after the movie's OW, combined with the typical leggy run of faith-based drama, I would say there are reasons to the leggy run.

 

Disclaimer, I am defending SOF's run as mostly real but I am not endorsing abuse of marketing to "seduce" people into believing conspiracy theories. These two are separate matters. 

[JustLurking]

We've gone over this many times already...the numbers are pretty much real, if you dislike the whole operation just move on and ignore it (like I'm doing), no need to be in denial.

[WittyUsername]

30 minutes ago, JustLurking said:

We've gone over this many times already...the numbers are pretty much real, if you dislike the whole operation just move on and ignore it (like I'm doing), no need to be in denial.

I wasn’t in denial, so much as I was trying to see if other people here had anymore insight. If there’s no concrete proof, then I’m willing to accept that the numbers are legitimate. 

[PlatnumRoyce]

53 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

I did see CNN and CBS report on it, so there’s that.
 

I don’t doubt that there are plenty of nuts who would go out to see this, but the way it jumped ahead like it did in its second weekend is rather unusual. 

But it didn't genuinely have a 30% increase over the opening weekend. The second weekend jump is 100% a function of opening on Tuesday July 4th instead of Friday (which means both a deflated Friday and massive previews aren't included in the OW). By any sort of "adjusted" OW, the film's first 3 weekends look fairly similar to something like Crazy Rich Asians. Yes, crazy holds but it's less a jump than the film's initial success leading to massive wave of coverage + WoM leading to new audiences finding the film. This leads to a roughly even weekend as the opening as these new audiences balance out the initially targeted audience's weak decline. Look at how Sound of Freedom's second weekend age skew became noticeably younger.
 

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by PlatnumRoyce

[Boxx93]

There is two major theatrer chains in my country (Cinex and Cines Unidos), and the social media accounts of these two chains (IG, Facebook, X) are filled with comments asking when is Sound Of Freedom going to come out. If the rest of Latin America has this amount of interest for the movie, I think this has potential to do huge numbers overseas.

 

Btw, I'm glad Angel Studios has a release date confirmed.

[Claire of Themyscira]

Eww, hope this flops overseas. ❤️

[expensiveho]

On 7/26/2023 at 1:15 PM, titanic2187 said:

If you have already something in mind to believe, no amount of screenshot can reverse that course.

Pretty ironic how the "anti-conspiracists" are going full conspiracy with this movie. 

[Human]

15 minutes ago, expensiveho said:

Pretty ironic how the "anti-conspiracists" are going full conspiracy with this movie. 

They have always been that way.