Bonhoeffer Film Flops At The Box Office
It’s official: after four weeks of wide release in theaters, the 2024 historical drama thriller Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. is a flop, representing another misstep for Angel Studios, the Mormon-owned streaming platform and film distributor best known for producing ‘The Chosen’ and ‘Sound of Freedom’
Angel Studios had generated a couple of successes at the box office, with previous theatrical releases His Only Son, doing $13.8M on a $250,000 budget, and their mega-hit Sound of Freedom, earning $250M on a budget of $14.5M. However, their last two films did not fare as well, with the Sound of Hope: the Story of Possum Trot doing $12M on a budget of $8.5M and their 2024 film Cabrini only earning $20M on a budget of $50M.
Their newest flick, which mythologizes German progressive pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, along with the moral quandary associated with such a task, had a budget of $25M but only made $11.8M.
Given that Angel Studios gives subscribers to their platforms two free movie tickets to the show, have long employed a “pay it forward” model that encourages folks to purchase tickets to give to others as a “ministry outreach tool,” and have marketing and promotional expenses as well, it’s safe to say that this has been a complete dud.
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I hope all their movies flop. The last thing we need is Mor-mons trying to sell Christ. Someone they don’t even know. Goes for Glenn Beck too.
Not a progressive theologian :/
thats a mean thing to say. “Heresy” articles have been debunked, I have done the research myself. Also the movie was only bought by Mormons after it was made, the director is a Wheaton College graduate.
I’d like to see the evidence of Bonhoeffer being a progressive theologian. Having read his book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” there isn’t even the faintest of scents of liberalism there.
As for the movie, I was skeptical of it to begin with regarding production quality. Still haven’t seen it and may just delay for it to come out on DVD and borrow it from somewhere.
Yeah, the scene where “Bonno” is leading a wild jazz group in a Harlem bar while rockin’ the walls down, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a glass of whiskey on ice at the piano, as he rocks out the boogie-woogie…
I mean: c’mon!!
Still, Eric Metaxas (while conceding he had nothing to do with the production) did manage to set up some screenings at a few large churches around the country — making sure, of course, to bring many copies of his own crazed Bonhoeffer biography to sell to the brain-addled faithful. (His biography — presenting Dietrich as a right-wing conservative Republican in order to sell it to the Reagan/Bush masses — had every credentialed historian who reviewed the book shouting: God Almighty!!! This book is a disaster!!!!).
Metaxas, though, could figure out a way to make a few thousand dollars off this cinematic debacle, heh-heh.
So, that’s something, right?
Yeah, the scene where “Bonno” is leading a wild jazz group in a Harlem bar while rockin’ the walls down, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, a glass of whiskey on ice at the piano, as he rocks out the boogie-woogie…
I mean: c’mon!!
Still, Eric Metaxas (while conceding he had nothing to do with the production) did manage to set up some screenings at a few large churches around the country — making sure, of course, to bring many copies of his own crazed Bonhoeffer biography to sell to the brain-addled faithful. (His biography — presenting Dietrich as a right-wing conservative Republican in order to sell it to the Reagan/Bush masses — had every credentialed historian who reviewed the book shouting: God Almighty!!! This book is a disaster!!!!).
Metaxas, though, could figure out a way to make a few thousand dollars off this cinematic debacle, heh-heh.
So, that’s something, right?