Defying the predictions of industry experts, Unplanned has continued to rack up boffo box office returns, pulling in $3.2 million in its second weekend of showings. Produced by Pure Flix, the film tells the real-life conversion story of Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood abortion facility director who became an ardent pro-life activist. During its opening weekend, the movie took in more than $6.4 million from around 1,000 theaters, coming in fourth overall and beating out many of the bigger-budget films from the major studios. According to Box Office Mojo, at the end of two weeks, Unplanned has collected $12.5 million in receipts. At the end of its second week, Unplanned was still in the Top Ten box office draws, coming in at number eight, behind highly promoted movies such as Shazzam!, Pet Semetary, Dumbo, and Captain Marvel.
Undaunted by repeated efforts of powerful forces to sabotage it, the makers of the biopic have managed to triumph nonetheless. From the beginning, Unplanned faced enormous opposition from abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood and its militant pro-abortion allies in Hollywood and the media. As we have reported previously, the show has overcome the intended crippling effect of being slapped with an “R” rating, even though it contains no profanity, sex, pornography, nudity, or violence — other than the real-life violence depicted of a suction abortion. Next, television networks refused to run ads for the movie due to the “sensitive nature” of the subject. Then Twitter suspended Unplanned’s account twice. (Twitter claims it was an accident and insists they were not attempting to censor or stifle the movie.) Then there were the media reviewers, who either blackballed the film by ignoring it, or mauled it with ridicule.
Nevertheless, Unplanned not only has survived the onslaught, but has thrived. “This film has been an overwhelming success,” said Pure Flix CEO Michael Scott. “The amazing work of the filmmakers, actors and team behind bringing Abby Johnson’s story to audiences is helping to raise awareness to national and regional pro-life movements around the country. For one film to have such an impact with audiences that are showing up in such large numbers reinforces how important it is to bring this topic to audiences.”
Lead actress Ashley Bratcher, who plays Abby Johnson, has revealed that shortly after deciding to take the role her mother informed her that she might have been aborted herself, but her mother changed her mind at the last moment, left the abortion clinic, and gave birth to Ashley. Bratcher has bravely taken on her pro-abortion Hollywood colleagues, even though she knows it could be a career-ender in Tinsel Town.
In an op-ed for Deadline, Bratcher responded to calls from Alyssa Milano and other Hollywood leftists to boycott the state of Georgia because of its recent passage of legislation to prohibit abortion if the baby’s heartbeat can be detected. Milano sent a letter to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, warning him to veto the bill or face the economic consequences of a Hollywood boycott that could ruin Georgia’s prosperous film industry. Milano’s letter was signed by Rosie O’Donnell, Amy Schumer, Ben Stiller, Sarah Silverman, Don Cheadle, Mia Farrow, Essence Atkins, and Alec Baldwin, among others.
But Bratcher boldly declared her allegiance to “the sanctity of human life” and said “it’s pretty evident that Georgia has its own identity and that it won’t be bowing down to Hollywood anytime soon.”
Image: igoriss via iStock / Getty Images Plus
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“Unplanned” Actress Ashley Bratcher vs. Hollywood, Media, Abortion Industrial Complex
Unplanned Pulls In $6.1M on Opening Weekend. R Rating, Nets’ Ad-Buy Refusal Fails To Kill It
Nets Block Ads for “Unplanned”: a Movie too Controversial to be Advertised
