On any given weekend, AMC Century City 16 in Los Angeles and AMC Empire 13 in New York City are generally high up on the list of a movie’s top-grossing theaters. Such wasn’t the case for Sound of Freedom, a new movie from Angel Studios, the Utah-based production and distribution venture that previously backed faith-based hit The Chosen.

Sound of Freedom set off fireworks when it opened across the U.S. on July Fourth, and it gave Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny a run for its money. The movie, which did especially well in the middle of the country and in the South, grossed $11.6 million on its opening day to narrowly lose the daily July Fourth crown to Dial of Destiny ($11.7 million). Angel, however, says the opening-day number was actually $14.2 million when including $2.6 million in third-party ticket sales generated on Angel’s website.

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The movie, billed as a political thriller, stars The Passion of the Christ’s Christ, Jim Caviezel, as the real-life Tim Ballard, who worked as an agent for the Department of Homeland Security before embarking on his own quest to bring child traffickers to justice (Ballard heads up what’s come to be known as Operation Underground Railroad). Mira Sorvino and Bill Camp also star.

In its first weekend, Sound of Freedom placed third with an impressive $19.7 million for a six-day total of $41.7 million, according to final Comscore numbers for the July 7-9 frame.

The film even came in No. 1 in some multiplexes for the weekend, ahead of Insidious: Red Door and Dial of Destiny, including at the AMC Northpark 15 in Dallas/Fort Worth and Harkins’ Superstition Springs 25 in the Phoenix area, according to those with access to Comscore data. Overall, the two cinemas ranked No. 3 and No. 6 on the list of the film’s 20 highest-grossing theaters on opening weekend. It also came in No. 1 at a Miami/Ft. Lauderdale cinema complex, a theater in Houston, a Miami multiplex and a theater in Salt Lake City.

AMC Burbank 30 and AMC Orange 30 in northern Orange County topped the list of Sound of Freedom’s highest-grossing theaters, followed by AMC Northpark; AMC Dine in Thoroughbred in Nashville, Tenn.; AMC Gulf-Pointe30 in Houston; Superstition Springs; AMC Garden State Plaza in New Jersey; Regal Edwards South Gate in Southgate, Calif.; Cinemark West Plano in Dallas; and Cinemark 16 in Harlingen, Texas.

In terms of states, Sound of Freedom did especially well across Texas, as well as in Arizona, Florida and Utah.

The movie nabbed a coveted A+ CinemaScore, which generally guarantees strong word of mouth. The pic skewed female (58 percent) and older, with 57 percent of ticket buyers aged 45 or older, including 37 percent who are 55 and older.

Alejandro Monteverde directed Sound of Freedom, which was financed in part by crowdsourcing.

“This movie has now taken on a life of its own to become something more than that, a grassroots movement,” Angel Studios CEO Neal Harmon said in a statement. “The world needs to see Sound of Freedom and we know that our biggest competitive advantage — our incredible fans and investors — are going to make sure that happens.”

While Sound of Freedom has been discussed on QAnon message boards, Angel said that it isn’t a QAnon movie. Yet in late 2021, Caviezel spoke at a QAnon convention in Las Vegas, where he invoked the QAnon slogan, “The storm is upon us.”

Sound of Freedom continues its box office run this week and weekend, and will go up against Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part One, which opens Wednesday.