It may be the highest-grossing independent film of the year, but Sound of Freedom almost didn’t see the light of day thanks to major Hollywood studios trying to prevent it from coming out – and now the director and producer are calling out Hollywood! their years of struggle to bring their film to light.
The action thriller, starring The Passion of The Christ actor Jim Caviezel, follows a former US government agent who goes on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia.
Directed and co-written by Alejandro Monteverde and produced by Eduardo Verástegui, the crowdfunded film was kept out of theaters for nearly a decade by studio executives who disagreed with the creators’ beliefs and politics.
Following its highly anticipated release, the film has now been described as “faith-based,” a label that both Alejandro and Eduardo vehemently reject – going so far as to say it’s “dangerous” to pigeonhole their project in such a way .
Epic battle: Director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde and producer Eduardo Verastegui, pictured here in 2008, fought for years to get their movie Sound of Freedom picked up by the studios
“I have no idea why they’re labeling the movie as faith-based,” Alejandro told DailyMail.com exclusively. Typically, faith-based films are either openly religious or made by faith-based communities.
“It’s like why all of a sudden they say, ‘Oh, that’s a label.’ God is mentioned in almost every movie, and those movies don’t have the faith-based label.”
Going forward, Alejandro hopes film labeling doesn’t stick around.
“I just hope that we change the status of society, and that we don’t continue to label people. It’s like with the cops or movies, you don’t say, “Oh that chef, they’re Christian, so his burgers are Christian burgers.”
‘For me, me, I’m a filmmaker. I like making movies. I love cinema and I’m always looking for stories to tell, powerful stories, I don’t make movies for a group. I make movies for everyone.
‘And I always try to start from an objective point of view. My goal is to be objective, to make films. I’m never looking for answers. I’m looking for answers.
‘I’m always looking for a question. And when the movie is over, I want people to leave and come up with their own answers. So that’s all I want. I always, always enjoy proposing a theme, never imposing a theme.”
Eduardo agreed, adding that the faith-based label doesn’t sit well with him.
Stunned: The staff have expressed confusion over the film being labeled ‘faith-based’
Huge hit: Surprise hit film Sound of Freedom portrays a true story of child exploitation
Leading actor: Passion of the Christ actor Jim Caviezel directs the film and plays Tim Ballard, a former US government agent who goes on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia
“It really hurts me when someone just comes and tags it and says, ‘Whoa man, it’s taken me so long to balance it out.’
“I’m very confused why they have to say this is a faith-based movie. It’s just a label that doesn’t fit the movie. Just very, very, very weird.
“I did another movie called Little Boy, and one of my main characters says in the movie, ‘I’m more interested in the will of man than the will of God.’ He is one of the heroes. And they still label the film as faith-based.
‘This is a danger. And from there it was that labeling issue. But everyone has their thing and people have the freedom to say what they want.’
Still, the “faith-based” label doesn’t seem to have hurt the movie at the box office — quite the opposite, in fact.
At the time of writing, Sound of Freedom has grossed over $155 million despite its minuscule budget of just $14.5 million, well outpacing high-priced blockbusters like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Tom Cruise’s new Mission: Impossible in the ticket sales for one day.
But the journey to an international blockbuster was a tough one, and producer Eduardo revealed exclusively to DailyMail.com how Hollywood relentlessly tried to land it.
“I was hoping to finish the movie and find a decent distribution deal with someone, and then Covid hit,” he said.
“At that time I made a deal with Fox Colombia when the script was done and it was a great deal, it was a Discovery Channel documentary I believe.
“The person in charge of Fox Latin America was very passionate about raising awareness about this problem because he knew these countries, Colombia and Mexico. He knew this was real, and it happened. But then Disney bought Fox, and all the people in Fox left.
“So now I’m at Disney and we showed them the movie and they told me, this movie isn’t for us.”
Eventually, Eduardo pulled the movie from Disney and started knocking on the doors with Netflix and Amazon, but he had no luck.
“They passed by,” he recalled. And then also other studios. I knew I had two options: give up and put the film on YouTube for free, or don’t give up and fight hard to save children.’
Eduardo admitted he was stubborn and desperate to get the film out, so he toured Mexico, Spain and in London.
“I saw people clapping, some crying, others silent,” he recalls. “So after you showed the movie to 50,000 people across the country and you saw the reaction, I knew I had something special.”
And then Eduardo’s luck in finding a distributor began to change. “I got a call from someone in Provo, Utah,” he said.
“I had never heard of that city in my life. They said they were Angel Studios and they were really interested (in the movie).
“I went to Provo and met them and I thought, ‘Wow man, these guys are great,’ but I didn’t know if they had the infrastructure.”
“They said to me, ‘We’re all you’ve got, and we believe in your movie. Give us a chance. Give us a chance.’ I signed the contract with them and shook hands.’
After years of struggling to find a distributor, thanks to numerous rejections, Sound of Freedom was finally released on July 4 by Angel Studios and quickly became a box office hit.
Donald Trump with Tim Ballard (center) and Jim Caviezel (right) at a screening of the movie ‘Sound of Freedom’ on July 19, 2023 in New Jersey
Eduardo admitted that he was afraid he would be humiliated because his $14 million budget movie Sound of Freedom was sandwiched between big budget movies like Indiana Jones and the Dial Of Destiny and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.
But he needn’t have bothered.
Eduardo weighed in on the film’s success, admitting he never imagined it would take off on such a monumental scale.
“I just can’t believe we beat Indiana Jones with 2,000 theaters, less than them with less budget, with less infrastructure, with less power with less, less, less, less,” he said.
“I never thought… I mean, I still cherish the American dream, because this is the American dream to me. I was living the American dream. I witnessed the American dream. I moved to this country and I didn’t speak English 20 years ago.
“I made a commitment and I promised that I will only work in films that have the potential to make a difference in people’s lives. It took 20 years after two movies to get here and make this dream come true.”
“We owe this success to the audience,” director Alejandro added. “What’s just been great is just the public support. But right now the movie is out and you hear all these challenges that keep coming up, but we keep pushing, we’re still in the middle of the race.”