The low-budget action film Sound of Freedom has taken the box office by storm to become America’s tenth highest grossing film of 2023, according to Box Office Mojo.

On global rankings it is not far behind, sitting in 19th place -- but with plenty of room to move given it was only just released internationally.

For those unfamiliar with the movie’s premise, Sound of Freedom depicts the true story of Tim Ballard, an agent from the Department of Homeland Security. Ballard becomes disillusioned with his work arresting paedophiles, decides to leave the agency, and sets out for Mexico and Columbia where he rescues children trapped in the sex trafficking trade.

Angel Studios will be chuffed to have spent just US$14.5 million on the film and to be rewarded with returns north of $180 million. Believe it or not, domestically Sound of Freedom has outperformed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ($174 million), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One ($165 million) and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts ($157 million).

The New York Times recently called it “one of history’s most successful independent films”.

The Times’ compliment didn’t come easy. For weeks after Sound of Freedom was released, the film faced a barrage of hate from the corporate press.

Rolling Stone labelled Sound of Freedom “a superhero movie for dads with brainworms” and a “QAnon-tinged thriller… designed to appeal to the conscience of a conspiracy-addled boomer”.

According to The Washington Post, Sound of Freedom was guilty of “warping the truth about child exploitation and catering to QAnon conspiracy theorists”.

The Guardian maligned the movie as “the QAnon-adjacent thriller seducing America,” crediting its success to an “unsavory network of astroturfed boosterism among the far-right fringe, a constellation of paranoids…”

Even worse, when Sound of Freedom beat out Indiana Jones in the July 4th box office stakes, making back almost its entire budget in a day, The Guardian felt the need to publish this yawn-inducing paragraph:

That’s not, strictly speaking, accurate – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny had already been out for five days, the first three of which out-earned Sound of Freedom’s opening-day take, when the new independent thriller came to theaters on Tuesday. But for a fleeting moment this past Fourth of July, while the intended audience of Indy’s latest outing was presumably spending time with their families and friends at barbecues or in other social situations, an unoccupied fandom rallied by the star Jim Caviezel claimed the day with a $14.2m gross versus Dial of Destiny’s $11.7m. No matter that these figures require selective, almost willfully misleading framing to allow for the David-and-Goliath narrative trumpeted by supporters…

Okay, we get the point. But now that The Guardian’s tortured logic has been relegated to the scrap heap and Sound of Freedom is the clear victor over Indiana Jones, can we expect a mea culpa from the whiny rag? Not likely.