10 Movies That Are Popular For All The Wrong Reasons
1. Sound Of Freedom
Sound of Freedom is certainly one of 2023's most fascinating releases - a Christian-themed thriller about sex trafficking that's likely to gross more at the box office than The Marvels.
Yet the film's commercial success has largely been credited less to its resoundingly mixed reviews than how aggressively it targeted a very particular customer base.
That is to say, it was sold primarily to the sizable QAnon community - a controversial far-right conspiracy theorist movement which both star Jim Caviezel and the real-life individual he portrays, Tim Ballard, are proponents of.
Though the film itself doesn't contain any QAnon rhetoric, it has nevertheless become a strange battleground in the ongoing culture war, with right-wing moviegoers turning out in droves to support the film.
Ultimately Sound of Freedom's account of sex trafficking has been widely discredited as exaggerated and inaccurate, and while it's decently crafted at face value, it only became a box office smash because its marketing pandered so overpoweringly to some of the most unsavory sectors of society.