The Sound of Freedom Breaks $150 Million Domestically, and Prepares, Finally, for a Global Release

The Sound of Freedom has made $150,000,000 so far, and that is only domestically. It is still pulling in over $4 million a day without a single overseas screen showing the film.

But it's about to go global:

The faith-based political thriller Sound of Freedom is headed for cinemas overseas.

Angel Studios on Wednesday 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. At the U.S. box office, the movie crossed the $100 million mark July 19, a little over two weeks after its release July 4. And it finished Tuesday of this week with a cume north of $130 million.

It opens in Mexico August 31.

It was written and directed by Latinos, takes place in Mexico and Colombia, and about half of the dialogue is in Spanish, so it should make a good sum in Latin American countries.

On the other hand, there's Disney.

Yesterday I wrote up the allegations made by WDW_Pro's Disney whistleblower that Disney's advertising sales employees were no longer earning bonuses based just on ad sales, but also on "Championing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion," getting bonuses for just attending ever biweekly woke diversity lecture.

Today WDW_Pro reports that his whistleblower says that Disney's ad sales for Disney+ and ESPN+ are in the toilet, coincidentally enough.

His whistleblower tells him that "one of Disney's biggest ad partners" has exited its agreement with Disney. They feel that Disney overstated the "impact" that advertising on Disney would have (which may refer to Disney's less-than-stellar ratings, or viewers' lack of response to ads).

Further, ratings, and ad rates, for Disney+ and ESPN+ are so bad that Disney is trying to hide that by bundling it in packages with other Disney offerings like ABC and Hulu.

He also mentions that the co-president of Disney Entertainment (which overseas all Disney studios), Dana Walden, wanted to purge Disney of all "non-diverse" programming (anything starring a man or especially a white man). I guess that's not super-working-out for them.

Iger's in a big enough hole that he's hired back former Disney executives to help dig him out.

The executives will help him figure out how to return his struggling TV properties to profitability or near-profitability -- so they can be sold.

Disney CEO Bob Iger is reaching into his past, reportedly bringing back two former executives to help guide the media giant, according to multiple sources.

Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs have been rehired to advise Iger on how to deal with Disney's legacy television businesses, including the ESPN sports network, according to multiple news sources. Iger, in a recent interview with CNBC, confirmed he was mulling a potential sale of the assets.

Bob Iger will face the wrath of his shareholders at an earnings call next week.

One more thing: The nonsense lawsuit that Bob Iger filed against Ron DeSantis and Florida -- a lawsuit that essentially argued that Florida was required to give Disney special breaks and powers in perpetuity -- has seen a setback.

The new oversight board of the Reedy Creek development district is suing the outgoing board, which purported to grant Disney perpetual rights to control the area as they were being tossed out the door. The new oversight board wants to prove that this grant is null and void, because it was obtained by "backroom dealing" between Disney and the Disney owned-and-operated former board.

Disney moved to dismiss that lawsuit, and a judge has now dismissed Disney's motion.

A Florida judge on Friday rejected a Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) request to dismiss a lawsuit by an oversight district, a move that could make it harder for the entertainment giant to pursue its own case against Governor Ron DeSantis as part of a yearlong feud.

The ruling allows the oversight district to pursue its case that seeks to void "backroom deals" favorable to Disney that were struck with a prior district board earlier this year. If those deals were voided, the district has said it would nearly wipe out Disney's federal case against DeSantis.

Oh well!

By the way, the whole reason the Reedy Creek Improvement District even exists is because Walt Disney planned to build there an actual city, a planned community, which would be his sci-fi-meets-nostalgia notion of the ideal place to live for workers and families.

The government of Florida granted a special right to build this district, granting Disney unheard-of rights to basically run a corporation-owned city.

But Disney abandoned this idea when he realized he couldn't actually control the people living in that community like he controlled his employees. In a planned city, there would be alcoholism, prostitution, infidelity, divorces, etc. -- things that aren't ideal and aren't part of the Disney brand.

So he took the land he owned there and just build Walt Disney World, the theme park. The only vestige of the old "city of tomorrow" idea is Epcot Center.

So that's how Disney wound up being granted, for 70 years or so, an unprecedented degree of corporate control over the government of a big piece of land people both work and live on.

DeSantis cancelled that. He had every right to. It's highly dubious the grant should ever have been made in the first place.

posted by Ace at 04:28 PM

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