Photo: Contributed

Despite a rocky start that saw threats and cancellations of showings of a controversial movie about abortion at some theatres, the film Unplanned is proving highly popular in Kelowna.

Marlon Bartram of the Kelowna Right to Life Society says the organization has confirmed an eight-screen showing of the film at the Landmark Grand 10 theatres on Aug. 3.

The bookings were confirmed after the last three screenings at the Xtreme theatre in West Kelowna and Grand 10 sold out in less than 30 minutes.

Bartram says people were impressed by the film at two showings this week.

"I personally greeted almost every movie-goer as they exited the theatres, and they had nothing but extremely positive comments about the film. Many people had tears in their eyes and were visibly moved by it," he said.

Bartram says Canadian distributor Cinedicom is reporting that Unplanned is the second highest per-screen grossing film in North America this week, second only to Spiderman, and is the top grossing film in Canada for private screenings.