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Provo, Utah faith-based distribution and production company Angel Studios looks to have a hit on its hands with today’s release of The King of Kings, based on Charles Dickens’ posthumously-published story about Jesus Christ.
Launching on 3,200 screens, the cg title scored over $7 million on Friday and is headed for an $18 million-plus opening weekend frame, per Deadline. That would put the film in second place at the domestic box office, behind only Warner Bros.’ A Minecraft Movie.
The current top opening weekend for a religious animated feature is Dreamworks Animation’s The Prince of Egypt, which launched with $14.5 million in 1998. That film went on to gross over $100 million, an unlikely amount for The King of Kings, which is a front-loaded title, but nevertheless, the opening weekend record is likely to be broken.
Angel Studios, which also released the 2023 hit Sound of Freedom, reports that King of Kings already has nearly $15 million in presales. The company has an annual subscription program called the Angel Guild, in which certain membership tiers receive two movie tickets to every theatrical release. It’s unclear how the usage of those movie tickets will be tabulated into this weekend’s box office totals, but it could help explain the surprisingly high amount of presales that the movie is reporting.
Seong-ho ‘Jay’ Jang, a veteran vfx supervisor, is making his feature animation directorial debut with The King of Kings. The primary animation studio that is credited for the film is South Korea’s Mofac Animation. Jang co-wrote the script with Rob Edwards, whose credits include Disney’s Treasure Planet (2002) and The Princess and the Frog (2009). Incidentally, Edwards’ own animated feature, Sneaks, will debut in theaters next Friday.
The film’s A-list voice cast includes Kenneth Branagh as Charles Dickens, Oscar Isaac as Jesus, Ben Kingsley as High Priest Caiaphas, Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate, Uma Thurman as Catherine Dickens, Forest Whitaker as Peter, and Mark Hamill as King Herod, and Roman Griffin Davis as Walter Dickens.
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