Angel Studio’s David was their most ambitious film to date, an animated biblical epic produced by Slingshot USA featuring one of the Bible’s most popular stories: David and Goliath, and even delving into the aftermath of the event. Angel Studios was intimately involved with the crowd equity campaign of David, much like how Angel Studios created its own crowd equity campaign.
Angel Studios sought a mere $20 million with no clear valuation, selling their stock high from the lightning-in-a-bottle success of Sound of Freedom. Slingshot USA raised $49.7 million of its $60.9 million budget from an equity crowdfunding campaign, surpassing The Chosen as the most expensive fan-funded project.
However, come box office time, after 17 days, the film has exceeded $70 million globally. This is the biggest success for Angel Studios since Sound of Freedom, falling to the 10th highest grossing film distributor in 2025 from 8th place in 2023, the basis for the equity crowdfund valuation. However, this is not a box office hit.
Using a common industry rule of thumb, films generally need to gross 2.5x their production budget to break even overall (factoring in marketing, distribution splits, and other costs). Marketing is often equal to the movie’s budget, but in the case of David, its SEC filings called for $26 million for marketing, depending on the film’s success. The breakeven of the film, given its production and marketing budget, after Angel Studios and the theaters take their cut, is somewhere in the range of $150-200 million gross.
And while David has achieved $70 million, with hardly any of it international, it’s hard to imagine reaching break-even after international releases. If The King of Kings, the Charles Dickens Princess Bride Easter movie, is any indication, it can expect around 20 million internationally. (The King of Kings, a Korean film, also had less than half the budget to achieve similar results.)
The box office ceiling for a faith-based film is generally around $20 million. but it appears these animated films have triple the potential for their family appeal. So while $70 million for an upstart “faith” based animated film is impressive, against a $60.9 million budget, it’s a borderline flop.
