Angel Studios will release its eighth of 10 films this year in theaters Nov. 6. “Drummer Boy” will follow seven theatrical releases spanning various genres and ratings. 

The new film, starring For King and Country lead singer Joel David Smallbone and British actress India Brown, will follow a drummer boy in the Revolutionary War and his forbidden romance with an enslaved woman. This is one of Angel Studio’s plethora of storylines created to “amplify light.”

“Amplifying light” is the main driving factor in Angel Studio’s unique business model, according to Angel cofounder and Chief Content Officer Jeffrey Harmon. Named after “angel investors,” a term referring to independent investors in a show, Angel Studios uses member votes to screen and select every piece of content produced.

Most directors will use test screening for audience feedback and to predict box office returns. According to Kevin Goetz, an entertainment data analyst, it is rare to find a director who doesn’t test screen.

“In 2022 there were 130 studio movies that got a wide release, and I’d say that 90% of those went through a test screening, sometimes multiple times,” Goetz told the BBC. “The average movie will have three test screenings, and some will have as many as 10 or 15.”

Through the Angel app, members can access short films or parts of shows that a director submitted for feedback. The members then have the opportunity to answer three questions: “Is there any part of this film that was boring?” “Is there any part of this film that was confusing?” “How would you feel if this movie never became an Angel film?”

Test screening before a film is produced allows the studio to release successful films like “Sound of Freedom,” which earned over $250 million in box office sales worldwide despite predictions otherwise.

In an interview with Todd Garner on the podcast “The Producer’s Guide,” Harmon explained that the Angel Guild votes on every film and series.

“The biggest misconception is that the guild is going to only choose faith content or that it’s only going to choose cheesy content or not take risks,” Harmon said.

Harmon offered “The Sound of Freedom” (2023) as an example. At the time, the guild only was 250,000 people, compared to the 2 million paying members now. The guild vote accurately predicted a high audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

“I think it was like 55% Republicans and 45% Democrats watching it,” Harmon said. “So it’s pretty equal on that front, and all of them universally on Rotten Tomatoes loved the movie, but that was something that was passed by the guild and it’s something that everybody else rejected.”

That’s another part of Angel’s model: its goal to highlight filmmakers.

“The guild is a filmmaker’s best friend because as a filmmaker, you get to come in, you submit to the guild, you’ll get hundreds of comments, especially if you’re trying to reach the values of the audience,” Harmon said.

As far as the finances, the filmmakers receive $2 for every dollar the studio makes.

“We feel like when a movie takes off, that was the filmmaker that did that, not the studio,” Harmon said.

These values are carefully communicated. Angel defines “amplifying light” as featuring stories that are “true, honest, noble, just, authentic, lovely, admirable, and excellent,” according to Harmon’s interview with Morning Wire. 

With these values in mind, the guild is free to choose the movies Angel releases. The studio is able to produce any story that lives up to these criteria, regardless of genre, topic, or age rating.

Harmon explained the PG movie “Sketch” (2024) inspired the age-ranking process.

It is about a young girl grieving the loss of her mother by drawing frightening pictures of her feelings with crayons, which then come alive and attack people.

“There was a group inside of Angel that weren’t expecting it to be so scary,” Harmon told The Producer’s Guide. “We had to implement this feature in order not to disappoint or break the trust with our audience so that they could recognize not everything on Angel fits every age group.”

The group of like-minded moviegoers now participates in a pay-it-forward ticket model. This allows users to purchase tickets on behalf of others who would not otherwise be able to afford it. These exchanges are moderated inside the website.

Viewers can look forward to three new releases this year: “Drummer Boy,” “Hershey” premiering Nov. 17, and “Zero A.D.: The Birth of Christ” on Dec. 11.