Box office: His Only Son slides to 6th place in its 2nd week
Box office: His Only Son slides to 6th place in its 2nd week
The film, which draws an explicit link between the binding of Isaac and the crucifixion of Jesus, was explicitly promoted as an Easter movie.
Note: This post was updated April 10 to reflect the fact that His Only Son had a slightly steeper slide in its second week at the box office than the estimates predicted. The original story remains as it was, but see the update that follows it.
-
His Only Son had a decent hold in its second week at the North American box office.
The film, which draws an explicit link between the near-sacrifice of Isaac and the crucifixion of Jesus, is currently on track to gross $3.25 million in North America this Easter weekend, which would bring its total domestic gross to $11 million.
A few quick data points:
This week’s gross is down 40.9% from last week, which is the second-lowest drop, percentage-wise, of any film from last week’s top ten. (The only film with a smaller drop was Scream VI, which dropped 37.9% in its fifth week.)
His Only Son is currently in a tight race with Scream VI for the #5 spot, behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Dungeons & Dragons, John Wick, and Air.
Box Office Mojo is currently giving Scream VI the edge, with $3.3 million, but the estimates for the two films are only $65,000 apart, so the two films could very easily switch places when the final figures are reported tomorrow.
It is not clear to me how Angel Studios’ “pay it forward” tickets would be counted in these box office stats, or even if they would be counted. But if the studio has distributed fewer than 25,000 such tickets, and if the average ticket price this year is $10.45, then those tickets would account for only $260,000 or so.
His Only Son—unlike some high-profile “faith-based” films—is also reporting a sliver of foreign box-office revenue, with $4,017 coming from overseas.
Looking ahead, His Only Son could very easily surpass The Chosen Season 3: Episodes 1 & 2 as the top-grossing Bible film of the 2020s within the next week or two, at least in North America—and, beyond that, it might even have a shot at passing 2018’s Paul, Apostle of Christ to become the top-grossing Bible film domestically since 2017.
But it will all depend on what kind of “legs” the film has, after the Easter season.
Meanwhile, The Journey: A Music Special from Andrea Bocelli—a special Fathom Events release that was co-produced by a Christian network, features Christian guest singers, and was heavily promoted to Christian audiences—grossed an estimated $523,692 this weekend, bringing its total domestic gross to $3.6 million.
The Journey opened on Palm Sunday, and it made enough money in one day to join the top ten last week—but this fact was not revealed until some time after the weekend’s box-office stats were reported. So, in my box-office report last week, Jesus Revolution got to celebrate the fact that it had been on the top ten list for six straight weeks… but then, after The Journey was added to the list, Jesus Revolution got bumped down to #11. (I updated last week’s report accordingly.)
The Journey played in theatres all week, and on Monday and Thursday it even outgrossed His Only Son. But it lost more than half of its theatres on Friday, and it will probably land just outside the top ten this week, in the #11 spot.
The Journey is also reporting super-low foreign revenue, to the tune of $1,312.
And what about Jesus Revolution, you ask? That film, which came very close to being in last week’s top ten, also lost more than half of its theatres this week, and it is now on track to gross $410,000 this weekend, which would land it in the #15 spot.
Jesus Revolution has now grossed $51.7 million since opening in February.
It is still not reporting any foreign revenue.
The film’s home-video release was announced a few days ago. It will be available for digital purchase this coming Tuesday, and it will be on DVD and Blu-ray two weeks later, on April 25, almost exactly two months after it came to theatres.
At least two more “faith-based” films are set to be released in theatres this month:
Nefarious, a horror film from the writers of God’s Not Dead, is due April 14.
Big George Foreman, a sports biopic from Sony’s Affirm label, is due April 28.
All of the big “faith-based” films that we’ve seen so far this year have been connected to The Chosen on some level: The Chosen’s season finale came out in February, and it was followed a few weeks later by Jesus Revolution which stars one of The Chosen’s main actors (and features a cameo by another), and that was followed by His Only Son which was distributed by the same studio that co-produces The Chosen.1
But Nefarious and Big George Foreman have no significant connection to The Chosen that I know of; they were simply made by people who had some fairly big “faith-based” successes in the pre-Covid era. So it will be interesting to see how those films do compared to the Chosen-adjacent films that have been all the rage lately.
And now, a couple of updated charts.
First, here is how His Only Son currently ranks among the Bible films of the past 25 years in North America (this list includes films like The Shack and Three Thousand Years of Longing that don’t tell biblical stories but do feature biblical characters, as well as modernizations of biblical stories like The Song and Redeeming Love):
And here is how His Only Son ranks among those films globally, as far as I can tell:
And, second, Jesus Revolution has now earned $51.7 million since opening in February, which is enough to make it the 9th-highest-grossing “faith-based” film to date.
And that, I think, about covers it. More later, perhaps.
-
April 10 update: The final numbers are in, and His Only Son had a significantly steeper slide than originally estimated. The film earned $2.8 million—which represents a slide of 49% from last week—and it almost landed in 7th place, behind Creed III (which earned $2.76 million in its sixth week, just a hair less than His Only Son).
Why did His Only Son fall short of the prediction? Evidently it made less money on Sunday, in particular, than expected—so if I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with the fact that that Sunday was Easter, and the film’s core audience may have prioritized churchgoing and similar activities over moviegoing that day.
In fact, if you look at Deadline’s shifting predictions over the weekend, you get the impression that ticket sales were down on Good Friday and Easter Sunday but surged on Saturday, relative to the other two days. And so the predictions went from $2.4 million on Saturday morning to $3.25 million on Sunday morning, before the actual revenue—$2.8 million, right in-between those estimates—was revealed on Monday.
Was the film’s target audience more likely to see the film on the Saturday because that was the day with the fewest social and religious obligations? Could be.
In any case, this is the second week in a row that the estimates for His Only Son have gotten a little… complicated. Will things stabilize by next week, I wonder?
-
Past posts on His Only Son and movies about Abraham:
‘God’s Stories #3: The Promise (Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar)’ (July 22, 2022)
‘Solomon and the Djinn: two movies’ (August 27, 2022)
‘The binding of Isaac, coming to theatres next month!’ (February 11, 2023)
‘Angel Studios launches new trailer, new theatrical division for His Only Son’ (March 16, 2023)
‘Interview: David Helling on directing His Only Son’ (March 27, 2023)
‘Abraham and the binding of Isaac at the movies’ (March 29, 2023)
‘A few brief thoughts about His Only Son’ (March 31, 2023)
‘Box office: His Only Son cracks the top 5, while Jesus Revolution slips out of the top 10’ (April 2, 2023)
‘Angel Studios raising funds for Jacob, the sequel to His Only Son’ (April 3, 2023)
‘His Only Son gets a new, Sarah-focused trailer going into its second weekend’ (April 6, 2023)
Past posts on the Erwin brothers and Jesus Revolution:
‘Review: Moms’ Night Out (dir. Jon & Andrew Erwin, 2014)’ (May 21, 2014)
‘I Can Only Imagine and Steve McQueen: American Icon co-director Jon Erwin on rooting for the underdog and following your dreams’ (March 16, 2018)
‘A new Bible-movie trilogy is in the works from the makers of I Can Only Imagine and the studio behind The Shack’ (March 27, 2019)
‘From Jesus Christ to Jesus freak’ (September 2, 2022)
‘A new featurette gives us our first look at Jesus Revolution’ (October 8, 2022)
‘Hippies-for-Christ flick Jesus Revolution gets a trailer’ (October 22, 2022)
‘The Chosen’s successors: a new Left Behind movie and the Jesus Revolution?’ (November 22, 2022)
‘A few brief thoughts about Jesus Revolution’ (February 24, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution is a “faith-based” hit’ (February 26, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution earns another $8.65 million in its second week’ (March 5, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution has a decent hold in its third week’ (March 12, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution crosses $45 million in its fourth week’ (March 19, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution hangs in there in its fifth week’ (March 26, 2023)
‘Box office: His Only Son cracks the top 5, while Jesus Revolution slips out of the top 10’ (April 2, 2023)
All three of these releases were, of course, preceded by the latest Left Behind film in January. Was that a “big” film? Debatable, though it did crack the top ten. Was it Chosen-adjacent? Also debatable. It’s based on a novel by the father of The Chosen director Dallas Jenkins, but I don’t believe the film’s marketing campaign ever tied it to The Chosen in any way.