“The Chosen,” a surprise hit television series, is billed as the first multi-season show about the life of Jesus — and one of the biggest crowd-funded media projects ever produced. The show’s third season will begin streaming online in mid-December.
Conceived by a little-known creator, featuring no major stars, and funded primarily, at first, through small contributions without the support of a Hollywood studio, the series began on an obscure proprietary app and is now given away for free. Its I.P. is 2,000 years old. But despite the long odds, the faith-based drama series has become a bona fide phenomenon in many parts of Christian culture, attracting a fervent ecumenical fandom while remaining almost invisible to others.
Globally, 108 million people have watched at least part of one episode of “The Chosen,” according to an analysis prepared at its producers’ behest by Sandy Padula, an independent consultant. The show now also streams on platforms including Peacock, Amazon Prime Video, and, as of this week, Netflix. Producers recently announced that the third season of the show would also be available on a new “The Chosen” app.
The first two episodes of the show’s third season premiered together in theaters on Nov. 18, and brought in more than $8 million, coming in third at the weekend box office behind mainstream movies that screened in more theaters.
A limited-run theatrical release of a Christmas special last year was extended weeks beyond its planned run and topped $13.5 million in ticket sales — a fraction of the box office for mainstream Hollywood films, but a record for Fathom Events, a large distributor that specializes in special events and short-run screenings. The show first appeared in 2019, but it wasn’t until the coronavirus pandemic that it found its audience. The first two seasons are eight episodes each.
When Felicia Maize’s large evangelical church in the suburbs of Dallas temporarily closed down in March 2020, friends texted her and her family to urge them to tune in.
“This Jesus blinks his eyes,” Mrs. Maize recalled one friend telling her. He wasn’t some stiff and remote character from an old painting; he was relatable, like a best friend, she said. A few episodes in, they were hooked. The show spread among their friend group by word of mouth, and “sustained everyone,” she said. “We binged Jesus.”
Mrs. Maize had come to the Texas set with her husband and two sons, who stood in the baking afternoon sun waiting to be summoned to the cameras. “We’re not lukewarm!” she said cheerfully, a reference to the Book of Revelation’s warning against tepid faith, and a description of their burning fandom.
Part of the camp was an Instagram-friendly playground, where extras spent their downtime posing with life-size cutouts of cast members and browsing at a large gift shop. Other areas were transformed into first-century Galilee, including a replica of the seaside city of Capernaum, where the Gospels describe Jesus attending synagogue and healing people.
The series is based on the four Gospels, which follow Jesus from his birth in a stable to his resurrection after being crucified by the Roman Empire. But the show’s creator and director, Dallas Jenkins, an evangelical Christian, has fleshed out elaborate new back stories and personalities for the people around his central character.
The Jesus of “The Chosen” is serene, charismatic and intimate — something like a roving therapist. In the world of “The Chosen,” Mary Magdalene is an alcoholic and a victim of sexual assault. Matthew, the tax-collector disciple, is portrayed as on the autism spectrum, and the disciple Little James has a physical disability expressed as a limp. (The actor who plays Little James, Jordan Walker Ross, has scoliosis and mild cerebral palsy.) (READ MORE)
