The pro-life move Unplanned had unplanned success at the box office over the weekend. The results come even after the best efforts of some to keep movie goers from learning about it.
The movie is the true story of former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson, who later became pro-life. The film ended the weekend at number 5 behind high budget Dumbo, Us, Captain Marvel and Five Feet Apart. It actually outperformed Captain Marvel in per-theater revenue.
It beat How to Train Your Dragon and the newly released and highly anticipated Hotel Mumbai, which came in at number 8. These are amazing numbers considering it was playing at only one-quarter to one-half the number of theaters as the top four movies.
Unplanned earned $6.1 million dollars to become the second-best opening for a movie from PureFlix. The faith-based movie company’s top opening performer is God’s Not Dead 2 which made $7.6 million in its first weekend.
The film was the number 1 film in hundreds of markets across the nation, primarily in more conservative states.
“We are thrilled, gratified and humbled,” Unplanned co-directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman said Sunday in a statement. “We are so pleased that the American people have responded with such an enormous outpouring of support at the box office. It humbles us and we look forward to seeing what happens in the weeks ahead.”
Unplanned has had a hard go at even being shown in theaters. With PG-13 content, the film received an R rating because of a computer generated image of a sonogram portraying an abortion.
Over the weekend, Twitter was forced to reactivate the account for the film after it was censored from tweeting out about the film’s success. In addition, ads were blocked from being run on the networks Lifetime, HGTV and the Hallmark Channel. Even the radio network KLOVE banned ads until www.metrovoicenews.com ran a story announcing the action and KLOVE listeners responded by bombarding the KLOVE Facebook page and corporate switchboard with messages supporting the film.
But those actions can’t stop a good movie. Reviews from Christian movie critics have been strong as well as those of moviegoers.
Strong turnout for movies and high per-screen revenue are what keep movies in theaters. Unplanned’s success is hoped by the those in the pro-life community to continue to grow to reach those who are undecided about the issue and young people who are bombarded with pro-abortion messages in mass media and social media.
The movie was partially financed by Michael Lindell, the multimillionaire founder of My Pillow, who is a born-again Christian and outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump.
–By Dwight Widaman