Amazing Grace Breaks $10Million

|PIC1|Amazing Grace, the inspirational movie about Britain's greatest abolitionist and leading evangelical William Wilberforce, hit a major milestone at the box office recently when it claimed over $10million USD in gross receipts.

The film, which first debuted in the US in late February, did so well that its production company, Bristol Bay Productions, moved the film into over 1,000 big screens from its original 791 theatre release. The company hopes to bring that figure up to 1,500 in the coming weeks.

In terms of ticket sales, the success of the movie has been largely attributed to church sales - the result of a large grass-roots campaign to get Christians involved with the issue of slavery and modern day slavery, human trafficking.

Some 40 per cent of the total viewers have said they were encouraged to see the movie by their church.

Last month, 6,000 churches participated in Amazing Grace Sunday, each congregation pledging to sing the famous hymn "Amazing Grace" during service. The day gave the film a strong draw from Christian circles.

The film depicts the story of William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd, Fantastic Four), one of Britain's chief abolitionists and follows his struggles to abolish the slave trade, including the problem of a highly resistant Parliament which felt the stability of the empire rested in the continuation of the slave trade. His eventual victory had ramifications in America's abolitionist movement.

The Amazing Change campaign was launched to coincide with the release of the film, to expose the modern day slave trade. The coalition consists of more than 75 organisations, each wanting to see an end to human trafficking and forced labour around the world.

The film was released during Black History Month to go along with the outreach and increase awareness among Americans.

In addition, Sparrow and EMI Records released a soundtrack entitled Amazing Grace: Music Inspired by the Motion Picture which featured some of today's biggest Christian artists, including a new version of the original hymn, "Amazing Grace", by Dove award-winning artist Chris Tomlin.

Bristol Bay Productions is part of Walden Media, the company that brought "The Chronicles of Narnia" to the big screen.