Child trafficking drama ‘Sound of Freedom’ banned in the USA?

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When the movie, Sound of Freedom, was released on the 4th of this month, nobody expected it to become so talked-about, let alone earn $ 100 million at the North American Box Office! The movie talks about an ex-government agent’s rescue mission, where he saves victims of child sex trafficking from Columbia. It is a biographical depiction of Tim Ballard (played by Jim Caviezel), a former government agent, who travels to Columbia to rescue the children.

What’s the noise all about?

Three weeks into its release, Sound of Freedom has indeed become one of the highest-grossing movies in the domestic market of North America. However, what’s making people talk about the movie is the strange experiences shared by moviegoers on their social media accounts. Many people, who booked tickets for this movie experienced technical glitches, AC issues and other problems in the theatres that they visited.

With more and more people reporting issues like these on social media, it became clear that this just couldn’t be a coincidence, and the waters were murkier underneath. Moviegoers were distraught at Hollywood’s biggest attempt to sabotage “Sound of Freedom” because it addresses issues that the industry had shied away from all these years.

By creating such scenes in the theatres, Hollywood and the people who rally behind the industry are trying to keep problems like child sex trafficking well hidden like it has been, for all these years. The real and reel heroes of the story (Ballard and Caviezel) have been quite vocal about conspiracy theories related to child trafficking in the past, fuelling the buzz around the movie.

What’s the conspiracy theory in this movie?

The film’s hero, Caviezel has delivered many public speeches in events like QAnon, where he spoke about why no one addresses child sex trafficking openly in Hollywood. The actor’s open talks, about the adrenochrome conspiracy theory, have not gone down well with many Hollywood biggies. For those of you who are wondering what this theory is all about, here is a brief explanation.

According to this theory, child sex traffickers drain the children’s blood to harvest a chemical called adrenochrome. Some performers in Hollywood inject themselves with this chemical-filled blood as it helps them stay young.  The real-life personality, on whom the movie is based, Tim Ballard, has also been quite vocal about his opinions about child trafficking in the recent past.

In light of all these theories, the movie, “Sound of Freedom” co-written and directed by Alejandro Gomez Monteverde, has managed to make the right noises after all.

Stand of Distributors and Theatres

The movie is funded partly by crowd-funding and partly by Angels Studios (Utah-based). Angels Studios has been trying its best to improve the viewership and popularity of the movie by launching the “Pay it Forward” program, where you can book the tickets for the movie online, and give it to your friends who may not otherwise book tickets for themselves.

AMC Theatres, the country’s largest cinema chain, refutes all reports of technical glitches and operational issues in theatres where the screening of the movie happened. According to Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Theatres, “More than one million people have watched Sound of Freedom at AMC Theatres”. He also stated that all conspiracy theories reported by moviegoers were absolutely baseless.

Has the movie been banned?

From what the movie’s distributors and theatre owners say, it doesn’t look like the movie has been banned at all. You can continue to watch the movie at a cinema near you. What about the social media posts of people, who booked tickets, but were prevented to watch the movie, you may ask. You could be one of those 1 million people that AMC Theatres proudly states have watched the movie successfully. Regardless of the hype and conspiracy theories around the movie, this should definitely be on your must-watch list at a cinema, or later when the movie releases on an OTT platform. This is because the movie talks about a hard-hitting theme that has been explored for a long while.

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