The trailer for “Unplanned” — the upcoming pro-life film about famed Planned Parenthood defector Abby Johnson — has reached the number one spot on iTunes, according to the film’s marketing team.
Unveiled in late January following the March for Life, the trailer now hovers above such recognizable brand names as “Aladdin,” “Child’s Play,” and “Avengers: Endgame.” See screenshot:
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Actress Ashley Bratcher, who plays Abby Johnson in the upcoming film, said she “can hardly find the words” to describe her feelings in light of the public’s response to the film.
“I am blown away by the response to ‘Unplanned.’ I can hardly find the words to describe how I feel,” she said in a statement provided to The Daily Wire. “Seeing our trailer hit the #1 spot is incredible. Our cast and crew poured their hearts and souls into making this film and I can’t wait to share this story of hope with the world on March 29th.”
My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, an investor on the film, said he is not surprised to see the film performing so well prior to release.
“I am pleased but not surprised to hear that our trailer has hit #1 at iTunes,” Lindell said in a statement also provided to The Daily Wire. “This powerful and true story will uncover the truth and reminds us all that all children, born and unborn, deserve our love.”
Distributed by Pure Flix, “Unplanned” will be released on 800 screens nationwide come March 29. Creative duo Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon directed the film, the writers/producers behind the sleeper hit “God’s Not Dead.”
Upon the trailer’s release this past January, Abby Johnson said she hopes the movie will shine a light on the horrors of abortion. “I thought I was helping women,” she said. “But I was doing more harm than good. It wasn’t until I saw a child fight for its life that my world came crashing down and I understood the enormity of my actions. I had to leave.”
“No one will be able to walk away after seeing this movie and say, ‘I didn’t know,'” she added.
Though Johnson began in what she describes as a “conservative, pro-life family” household, she eventually became one of Planned Parenthood’s star employees. After joining the organization in 2001, her views on abortion began to tilt leftward to the point that she would eventually identify herself as “extremely pro-choice.” As clinic director of a Bryan, Texas facility, Johnson frequently accompanied women from their cars into the clinic. In 2008, the clinic crowned her “Employee of the Year.”
Things took an unexpected turn for Johnson in September 2009, however, when doctors asked her to assist in an ultra-sound-guided abortion for a 13-week-old fetus. It was in witnessing this inhumane act that Johnson experienced a change of heart. In her memoir, she recalled how the baby squirmed in fright as the vacuum tore it from its mother’s womb.
“For the briefest moment,” she wrote, “the baby looked as if it were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then it crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes. The last thing I saw was the tiny, perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube, and then it was gone.”
The trailer now holds 370k views on YouTube: