Angel Studios set to become publicly traded company after initial success

Angel Studios, a company that has helped produce, fundraise and distribute popular faith-based movies and television programming, is set to become a publicly traded business as it seeks to build on its success. 

In a statement published Wednesday, Angel Studios stated that it entered into a business agreement with Southport Acquisition Corporation with the goal of becoming a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ listed under the symbol “AGSD.”

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2025. 

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An investor presentation document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission highlights what it characterizes as the advantages of buying stock in the company, specifically “funding filmmakers who serve the audience first,” “shaping the future of the entertainment industry,” “supporting Angel’s mission to tell stories that amplify light” and “indirectly owning Bitcoin, Angel’s strategic treasury asset.”

An additional benefit of buying stock in Angel Studios, as identified in the presentation, involves “giving the green light power” to the Angel Guild. The production company characterizes the Angel Guild as a group that can “select winning films and shows prior to release, while also providing the core revenue stream that is recurring and growing.”

“The problem that Angel Studios seeks to address is that a limited number of Hollywood studio decision-makers determine which films and television shows are made, and four out of five box office releases fail. Additionally, for every hit TV show, there are a hundred misses,” the company said in its statement. 

“Angel Studios’ solution to this problem is to spread that decision-making power to the Angel Guild. This growing membership — rather than Hollywood executives — watch and select winning films and shows prior to release.”

Angel Guild membership, which is credited with ensuring the high box office success rate of Angel Studios films, is open to anyone.

Joining the Angel Guild, which currently has more than 300,000 members, costs $20 a month or $179 a year. Members of the Angel Guild have the power to “vote on pilots, concepts, and feature films” to decide what Angel Studios should make, join “exclusive livestreams” and receive “early access to stream our shows after their theatrical release.”

Additional benefits of the Angel Guild include “two movie tickets to every Angel Studios theatrical release to use or give away” and 20% discounts in the production company’s online merchandise store. 

Angel Studios has seen a lot of success in recent years with feature films such as “Sound of Freedom.” Released in 2023 as a profile of a federal employee who quit his job to rescue human trafficking victims, “Sound of Freedom” brought in more than $250 million in worldwide ticket sales at the box office. 

Angel Studio was also previously involved with the hit crowdfunded series about the life of Jesus Christ, “The Chosen,” which launched on the Angel Studios app in 2019 but severed ties with the company earlier this year. 

As outlined in the presentation to investors, six out of the seven feature films produced by Angel Studios have grossed at least $10 million in revenue. By contrast, the production company’s competitor Lionsgate has seen just 45% of the feature films it has made bring in more than $10 million while only 18% of the feature films produced by A24 reached that milestone. 

Angel Studios contends its feature films have received a more positive reception than those made by competing movie studios.

Films produced by Angel Studios in 2023 and 2024 received an average score of 95% on the Rotten Tomatoes popcornmeter. For comparison, movies produced by Paramount in the same time period had an average score of 84%, and movies produced by Disney in the past two years received an average score of 79%. 

Film production companies with lower average scores on the popcornmeter are HBO (75%), A24 (73%) and Netflix (61%).

Angel Video was originally known as the video filtering business VidAngel. The company was sold and rebranded as Angel Studios in 2021.