The pro-abortion film “Call Jane” was set to be a bulwark in Hollywood — a new film that would make horrific abortion procedures seem as nothing more than “scraping the inside of a pumpkin.” But the film failed to show the reality of abortion and was an utter failure at the box office.
Released in late 2022, the film was directed by Phyllis Nagy and stars Elizabeth Banks. “Call Jane” tries to lionize the radical abortion group Jane’s Collective — the progenitor to the violent pro-abortion terrorist group Jane’s Revenge that has been attacking pregnancy centers and churches since last May when the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked. The film follows a housewife named Joy (Banks) who helps to arrange abortions for women, only for her to end up committing them herself.
The film made waves with the Hollywood crowd when it premiered in October 2022 at the Sundance Film Festival with many fawning reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus reads, “Although its focus is somewhat narrow, Call Jane is an entertaining and dramatically effective dramatization of a pivotal chapter in American history.”
With these glowing comments, plus the casting of big names like Kate Mara (“The Fantastic Four”) and Sigourney Weaver (“Crazy on the Outside”) attached to it, it seemed it would be a slam dunk for a box office smash.
That never happened. In fact, the film was a box office bomb.
Breitbart News reported, “The pro-abortion movie Call Jane, starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, is turning out to be a box-office flop, mustering just $240,755 in 1,070 theaters in its first weekend for a pitiful per-screen average of $225.”
The question is why? While it was a small-budget film, the movie got a lot of attention in the corporate press, including glowing endorsements from the entertainment industry and, as noted, mainstream critics likened it to “Citizen Kane” in regards to cinematic quality.
Perhaps the film flopped for two reasons. The first could be that Jane’s Revenge is not a group to emulate. It frequently engages in violence while promoting the violent act of abortion. Last year, Live Action News reported on multiple occasions how the group has taken responsibility for attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers. While the group portrayed in the film officially disbanded in 1971 and members were never indicted of a crime, it is clear that they inspired today’s Jane’s Revenge and its terrorist activities.
The second reason the movie may have flopped is because American moviegoers have never seemed overly interested in movies that glorify the death of a child through abortion. While most Americans want abortion to remain legal, they also overwhelmingly support significant limits on the deadly procedure. In general, Americans become more and more uncomfortable with abortion as pregnancy progresses.
“‘Call Jane’ doesn’t just present abortion as a remarkably sanitary affair; it makes light of it,” wrote Bruce Bawer in his American Spectator review. “Well, no sale. It turns out that most Americans don’t think abortion is an appropriate topic for light entertainment. ‘Call Jane’ bombed not just in my neck of the woods, but everywhere.”
And while it attempted to depict the reality of abortion, like most Hollywood attempts to do so, it failed miserably. According to Decider, “… Call Jane director Phyllis Nagy (also known for writing Carol) doesn’t resort to graphic images for shock value. We stay on Banks’ face for the majority of the procedure, as she struggles to keep her terror in check. The camera doesn’t cut away. It creates a veil of intimacy between the viewer and Joy; the viewer feels for her in the way this stranger poking around in her clearly does not.”
The human being at the center of the act of abortion — the preborn child — is completely ignored and dehumanized in order to ensure Americans stay ignorant to the horrific reality of the procedures.
Despite Hollywood’s attempts, “Call Jane” was not the propaganda masterpiece that the filmmakers wanted it to be. It was a bad attempt at making light of the death of preborn children in the womb. The box office numbers prove audiences will shy away from abortion promotion, relegating this box office failure to the dustbin of cinema history where it belongs.
