Barely a week since Angel Studios rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, and the faith-friendly disruptor is still basking in the glow of its high-profile debut and feeling the heat that comes with it. The Utah-based studio behind Sound of Freedom has gone from a family-run outsider operation to a $1.6 billion public company in less than a decade. Its rise reflects not only the strength of a niche market hungry for values-driven storytelling but also the new pressures of proving that a homespun model can scale under Wall Street’s unforgiving gaze. It comes as the studio has expanded internationally, striking distribution agreements across Europe, Latin America, and Asia in an effort to prove its grassroots, faith-friendly business model can resonate worldwide.
Angel’s secret weapon has been its 1.5 million-strong “Angel Guild,” paying members who double as financiers and gatekeepers, voting on which projects make it to screens, as well as providing Kickstarter-style capital investments and a “pay-it-forward” booking system that allows people to buy and then donate movie tickets to Angel Studios releases for others to use.
“Rather than having a couple dozen people make all the decisions about every movie that goes out, I can’t take a movie into the studio and stream it or take it to theaters unless the guild passes it,” chief content officer Jeffrey Harmon explained, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in June, ahead of its IPO.
That grassroots democracy has delivered some startling wins, including the $250 million global success of Sound of Freedom and The King of Kings, a South Korean-produced animated hit about the life of Jesus, which has grossed more than $70 million worldwide. Media analyst Evan Shapiro estimates that from 2023 to 2025, Angel’s releases averaged $34.7 million per title, outpacing indie rivals like A24.
Angel’s pitch to investors is that audiences in middle America, the same group that Taylor Sheridan tapped to create his Yellowstone television empire, will flock to faith-friendly movies that embrace a more conservative worldview.
But the company’s bold approach comes with obvious risks. Angel has yet to turn a profit. In the first half of 2025, it booked $135 million in revenue but still posted a $53.3 million loss. The company has attributed much of its spending to efforts to expand its Angel Guild membership base, though detailed breakdowns of marketing costs are not publicly available. Just ahead of its listing, Angel raised $55 million from more than 40,000 individual investors and secured a $100 million credit facility with Trinity Capital. According to summaries of its filings, Angel has also used high-interest debt and other financing arrangements tied to revenue streams such as Sound of Freedom. These moves provided the studio with growth capital, but also raised questions about potential dilution, leverage, and the durability of its financial runway.
The international expansion adds another layer of uncertainty. Whether Angel’s blend of evangelical-inspired hits and broader family fare can travel beyond its U.S. base remains an open question. “Europe is a more secular market generally,” Harmon admitted to THR, but noted he sees strong growth potential in territories like Brazil, which boasts a more faith-focused audience. “They embrace the faith films more so than even the U.S. does.”
The company has already partnered with Brazil’s largest faith-based distributors for theatrical rollouts, inked a slate deal with U.K.-based distributor Kova for a pipeline of titles, and secured streaming and theatrical partnerships across Latin America. Angel has also pursued selective distribution agreements in Asia, including South Korea — home to a large Christian community — where The King of Kings became a local hit before expanding globally. These deals show Angel adapting to territory-specific partners, but also highlight the challenge of tailoring its model to vastly different cultural markets.
The studio has also run into friction with creatives. A bitter arbitration battle over The Chosen ended with Angel losing rights to its biggest series (Angel is appealing), and a lawsuit with Slingshot, producer of the animated feature David, is ongoing. Angel president Jordan Harmon has previously waved off the disputes, noting that lawsuits in the entertainment industry are “like pigeons in New York City. It’s just the reality of this space.”
Despite those bumps, Angel is charging ahead. The studio has teed up The Senior, a sports drama starring Michael Chiklis as a 59-year-old who returns to college to play football, and Zero A.D., a biblical thriller from Sound of Freedom director Alejandro Monteverde, starring Sam Worthington, Ben Mendelsohn, Gael García Bernal and Jim Caviezel. Its 2026 slate includes Young Washington, a George Washington origin story timed to hit theaters next summer during America’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
Angel Studios shares, trading under ticker symbol ANGX, have dropped from around $13 after going as high as $20.39 and as low as $4.52. On Tuesday, the stock had closed at $5.