Angel Studios' 'Drummer Boy' Scores Top-Five Debut as Box Office Surprise

With the domestic top-five list bookended by two international features this past weekend, another surprise came in the form of a period musical that shattered expectations to claim the third spot. Japan's Godzilla Minus Zero finished first on the weekend box-office chart, grossing a record $32 million. Meanwhile, India's Ramayana: Rise of a Legend finished fifth. Three homegrown movies claimed the remaining spots on the top-five list, with all three coincidentally highlighting different aspects of American culture.

The number-two movie was The Cat in the Hat, a new animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss' popular children's book. It fell short of expectations with a $20 million haul over the weekend. The number-four spot was claimed by A24's holdover hit, You Can See Everything — the three-hour documentary about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. The film has broken records for documentary features, and is on track to hit the $100 million mark domestically.

But we're here to talk about the weekend's third-biggest release, a period musical distributed by Angel Studios. Angel specializes in faith-based programming and has experienced tremendous success with the fringe film Sound of Freedom and the more universal animated movies The King of Kings and David. This year, Angel attempted to attract mainstream audiences with star-driven genre movies with religious undertones. Runner, starring Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson, underperformed at the box office earlier this year, as did the Western remake Angel and the Badman.

Here's How Much the Musical Grossed at the Box Office

However, Angel's latest release — Drummer Boy — has outperformed both Runner and Angel and the Badman in its opening weekend. While the action-comedy starring Ritchson generated $6.4 million in its first weekend, the Western remake starring Zachary Levi grossed $2.1 million in its first three days of release. Both movies received high praise from their target audiences, as has Drummer Boy, which now holds a 94% audience score and a 55% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Directed by Ben Smallbone and Joel David Smallbone, the film follows a soldier and his brother during the American Revolutionary War, and stars Lucas Leach, Melora Hardin, Ioan Gruffudd, and Joel David Smallbone. The film generated $9.4 million in its first weekend of release, playing in 2,850 theaters and delivering a per-theater average of $3,268. This happens to be a higher per-theater average than those of holdover releases Clayface, Wildwood, and Street Fighter.