US

Abortion Movie Posts Strong Opening Weekend, Knocks Captain Marvel Out Of Top Three

Newborn_Baby | Circa October 2015 | Mindy Olson P mindyop via Wikimedia Commons

The pro-life movie “Unplanned,” which tells the story of a former abortion worker whose pro-choice stance changed after working at a clinic, brought in nearly triple the expected box office numbers at the weekend’s close.

The movie hit theaters Friday and brought in over $6.1 million at the weekend’s conclusion over an expected $2-3 million, according to The Washington Times. The film came in third for screen earnings, putting up an average of $5,770 per screening, following “Dumbo” and “Us” with averages of $10,566 and $8,978 respectively. “Unplanned” beat out “Captain Marvel” which averaged $5,144 per screening.

“Unplanned” played on only 1,060 screens. It ranks fifth in total earnings at Sunday’s close, according to Box Office Mojo. “Dumbo” grossed $45,000,000 and “Us” grossed $33,605,000. “Captain Marvel” made $20,500,000 by the weekend’s close.

The movie tells the story of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas, until 2009. She left the organization after assisting in an ultrasound-guided abortion of a 13-week-old unborn baby. Johnson was Planned Parenthood’s youngest director of a clinic in the nation.

“I could not be more thrilled with the debut of Unplanned and reports of healing and conversion nationwide,” Johnson said, according to a press release.

She helped more than 22,000 women have abortions during her time at the clinic. Planned Parenthood named Johnson employee of the year in 2008. She worked at the abortion provider for eight years before leaving the group. Johnson had two abortions before leaving Planned Parenthood.

“We are thrilled, gratified and humbled,” directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman also said in a Monday statement. “We are so pleased that the American people have responded with such an enormous outpouring of support at the box office. It humbles us and we look forward to seeing what happens in the weeks ahead.” 

The film thanked Vice President Mike Pence Monday for his support of the film.

We are very grateful for the support of @VP Vice President Mike Pence for #unplanned
Thank you for your leadership and dedication to #ProLife
May God continue to bless this administration as we move towards 2020 elections.
.@potus / ,@VP https://t.co/KgMJ8mdpVK https://t.co/oxnUjIwyPG

— UnplannedMovie (@UnplannedMovie) April 1, 2019

The movie beat expectations despite a temporary Twitter suspension of its “UnplannedMovie” account Saturday because Twitter thought the account was associated with a user who violated platform policy. The ban was lifted after pushback from fans and media.

“When an account violates the Twitter Rules, the system looks for linked accounts to mitigate things like ban evasion. In this case, the account was mistakenly caught in our automated systems for ban evasion,” Twitter told The Daily Caller News Foundation Monday, explaining why it had temporarily taken action on the movie’s account.

“An account’s followers take time to fully replenish after it is reinstated. We are not hiding follower counts or disallowing certain people from following,” Twitter added.

CinemaScore gave “Unplanned” an A+ rating. The film is the 82nd film to receive the rating since 1982.

Film distributor Pure Flix will show the movie on 600 screens in early April, according to reports.

Follow Grace on Twitter.