distributor

“Sound of Freedom” distributor Angel Studios made its stock market debut Thursday as the company looks to expand its streaming service and eventually penetrate international markets.

The Provo, Utah-based firm is trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol ANGX. Shares of the company rose 8% to $13.

Angel Studios’ launch on the public market is the latest step in the company’s unconventional journey into the entertainment business.

Founded by brothers Neal, Daniel, Jeffrey and Jordan Harmon, the company began as VidAngel, a service that allowed viewers to sanitize Hollywood movies by erasing sex, violence and swear words. But in 2016, VidAngel was sued for copyright infringement by Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros., who said the company’s business model — which involved purchasing thousands of DVDs and Blu-ray discs and allowing users to stream them online — was essentially piracy.

VidAngel eventually settled the case, and the Harmon brothers sold off the filtering business. The company rebranded as Angel Studios and kept its content production and crowdfunding operation.

Today, the firm operates a streaming service and releases movies theatrically, including 2023’s massively popular “Sound of Freedom,” which grossed $250 million worldwide, and the animated film “The King of Kings,” which came out in May and tells the story of Jesus. The studio focuses on what it calls “values-based storytelling,” and its slate is determined through the vote of its 1.5 million Angel Guild members, who also get free movie tickets and other perks.

“It’s really a combination of the values of a broader audience,” said Jordan Harmon, president. “If you look at movies like ‘The Sound of Music,’ or ‘Casablanca’ or ‘12 Angry Men,’ all those were broad, incredible stories that touched the lives of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people. Those are the type of stories that we think fall right into this values-driven, light-amplifying mission.”

Though considered small for Hollywood, Angel Studios moved to become a publicly traded company because its nearly 70,000 investors required it to, said company Chief Executive Neal Harmon. The company merged with a special purpose acquisition company (or SPAC) called Southport Acquisition Corp. to go public. A SPAC is essentially a shell company that exists solely to buy a private company and take it public without the scrutiny of a traditional IPO.

“We’re turning the way that this industry works on its head,” he said. “And because we are not doing the traditional Hollywood gatekeeper thing, we also needed to access capital in an untraditional way.”

The path is far from the potato farm in Idaho where the brothers grew up, and where the nearest neighbor was a quarter-mile away. Working together on the farm — and sharing a bedroom for years — helped foster the communication and bond between the brothers, said Jeff Harmon, chief content officer.

“If you look in Hollywood, the best partnerships have all been brothers,” he said, ticking off several successful movie business sibling partnerships including the Disneys, Warners and Nolans. “When they actually work together really well, it becomes unstoppable.”

When a country like Armenia sends a film out into the world, it’s not just art. It’s a way to preserve memory, to reach a scattered diaspora. Each film offers the world stories that might otherwise be forgotten. So when President Trump proposes a 100% tariff on all films “produced in foreign lands,” the damage isn’t limited to foreign competitors or outsourcing studios. It threatens to shut out small nations like Armenia, for whom cinema is a lifeline.

The proposal hasn’t taken effect — yet. But July 9 marked a turning point in Trump’s broader tariff agenda, with a deadline for reimposing sweeping trade penalties on countries deemed “unfair.” While the situation for films remains unclear, the proposal alone has done damage and continues to haunt the industry. The tariff idea arises from the worldview that treats international exchange as a threat — and cultural expression as just another import to tax.

Take “Amerikatsi” (2022), the extraordinary recent movie by Emmy-winning actor and director Michael A. Goorjian. Inspired by his grandfather’s escape from the Armenian genocide — smuggled across the ocean in a crate — the project is not just a movie; it’s a universal story rooted in the Armenian experience, made possible by international collaboration and driven by a deep personal mission. Goorjian filmed it in Armenia with local crews, including people who, months later, would find themselves on the front lines of war. One was killed. Others were injured. Still, they sent him videos from the trenches saying all they wanted was to return to the set. That is the spirit a tariff like this would crush.

Armenia is a democracy in a dangerous neighborhood. Its history is riddled with trauma — genocide, war, occupation — and its present is haunted by threats from neighboring authoritarian regimes. But even as bombs fall and borders close, its people create. Films like “Aurora’s Sunrise” (2022) and “Should the Wind Drop” (2020) carry voices across oceans, turning pain into poetry, history into cinema. These films don’t rely on wide releases. They depend on arthouses, festivals, streamers and distributors with the courage and curiosity to take a chance. A 100% tariff would devastate that.

Indeed, the ripple effects of such a tariff would upend the entire global film ecosystem. Modern cinema is inherently international: A Georgian director might work with a French editor, an American actor and a German financier.

So sure, many American films use crew and facilities in Canada. But international co-productions are a growing cornerstone of the global film industry, particularly in Europe. Belgium produces up to 72% of its films in partnership with foreign nations, often France. Other notable co-production leaders include Luxembourg (45% with France), Slovakia (38% with Czechia) and Switzerland (31% with France). These partnerships are often driven by shared language, which is why the U.S. is also frequently involved in co-productions with Britain as well as Canada. Israel too has leaned into this model, using agreements with countries such as France, Germany and Canada to gain access to international audiences and funding mechanisms.

The U.S. government cannot unmake this system and should not try to do so. To penalize “foreign-made” films is to punish Americans too — artists, producers and distributors who thrive on collaboration. You can’t build a wall around storytelling.

Supporters of the tariff argue it protects American workers. But Hollywood is already one of the most globalized industries on Earth, and the idea that it suffers from too many foreign films is absurd. If anything, it suffers from too few. The result of this policy won’t be a thriving domestic market — but a quieter, flatter, more parochial one. A landscape where the next “Amerikatsi” never gets seen, where a generation of Armenian American youth never discovers their history through a movie screen.

If America still wants to lead in the 21st century — not just militarily and economically but morally — it should lead through culture and avoid isolation.

Stories like “Amerikatsi” remind us why that matters. A film that begins with a boy smuggled in a crate across the ocean ends with a message of joy and resilience. That’s not just Armenian history — it’s American history too. It cannot be separated. Unless we want that kind of storytelling priced out of our cinemas (and off our streaming platforms), we must keep the doors open.

For America to turn its back on stories like these would be a betrayal of everything film can be. And it would impoverish American society too. That way lies not greatness but provinciality.

Alexis Alexanian is a New York City-based film producer, consultant and educator whose credits include “A League of Their Own” and “Pieces of April.” She is a past president of New York Women in Film & Television and sits on the board of BAFTA North America.

June 30 (UPI) — Home Depot on Monday announced an agreement to buy GMS, a leading specialty building products distributor.

The deal, which is expected to be completed in 2026, will see Home Depot acquire GMS for $4.3 billion as it aims to draw in more sales from contractors and other home professionals.

GMS is a distributor of specialty products which include drywall, ceilings, steel framing and other products related to construction and remodeling projects in residential and commercial end markets.

“We are excited to join with SRS and The Home Depot, and we believe this transaction delivers significant value to our customers, suppliers and team,” said president and CEO of GMS, John C. Turner, Jr.

GMS shares were up more than 11%, while Home Depots’ rose slightly in early trading.

Home Depot subsidiary SRS distribution will buy all shares of GMS for $110, as part of the deal, the company said. The total enterprise value is approximately $5.5 billion.

“The combination of GMS and SRS will provide the residential and commercial Pro customer with more fulfillment and service options than ever before. Together, we’ll create a network of more than 1,200 locations and a fleet of more than 8,000 trucks capable of making tens of thousands of jobsite deliveries per day,” said CEO of SRS, Dan Tinker. “GMS is an industry leader with a proven track record of growth, and we look forward to welcoming the entire GMS team to SRS and capturing the exciting opportunity ahead.”

The GMS acquisition is expected to be completed by early 2026, Home Depot said.