Spielberg Beaten by Brazil Evangelicals on ‘Fake’ Box Office

(Bloomberg) -- Steven Spielberg's dystopian thrill ride "Ready Player One" may have topped all other films at the global box office this Easter weekend, but it had to settle for a distant second in Latin America's biggest country.

The record opening for the evangelical biopic "Nada a Perder," which translates as "Nothing to Lose," however, is being undercut by multiple claims that one of Brazil's largest evangelical churches scooped up tickets en masse, and then gave them away. The film, which is the first installment in a trilogy about the life of billionaire religious leader Edir Macedo, sold 2.3 million tickets, amassing 26.6 million reais ($8 million), according to local film industry website Filme B. Spielberg's new flick, which raked in $169.2 million globally, brought in just 7.1 million reais in Brazil, according to Filme B.

While cinemas rolled out the red carpet for "Nada a Perder," exhibiting the movie at more than 650 theaters, several local media outlets report that many auditoriums that were supposed to be sold out were in fact nearly empty. Newspapers say the church Macedo founded, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, purchased the tickets in order to enhance the film's performance. Church pastors then took to the streets, distributing them at no cost to would-be moviegoers, according to media reports.

The church, which relies heavily on donations, released a note even before the movie opened saying any claims on inflated sales were "fake news" -- local media had reported similar moves when the church's previous hit, "Os Dez Mandamentos" ("The 10 Commandments") was released in 2016.

At an afternoon matinee in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, despite about 90 tickets being sold -- almost all of which oddly in the four front rows -- only 10 attendees were seated as the film began. The cinema's website showed that an evening showing of "Nada a Perder" had a near identical configuration of front row seats sold out.

Macedo's biopic, which reportedly cost more than 25 million reais, was produced by television station Record, which he owns. The 73-year-old grew into a prominent media figure as more and more Brazilians join an emerging evangelical movement. In 2014, he opened a replica of Solomon's temple in Sao Paulo that can fit more than 10,000 followers and cost 690 million reais. His net worth is estimated at $1.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The church issued another statement Monday saying it has no control on who attends the movie but that it encourages people to go see it. It directed Bloomberg to that statement when contacted for further comment. They have previously declined to comment on Macedo's net worth.

Ticket suspicions aside, the biopic is also breaking ground on other fronts: with some 14,000 votes, it achieved a near-impossible perfect 10 out of 10 rating on entertainment website IMDB ("The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Godfather" are rated at 9.2 out of 10.)

--With assistance from Paula Sambo and Tom Metcalf

To contact the reporter on this story: R.T. Watson in Rio de Janeiro at rwatson71@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net, Julia Leite, Rob Golum

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