It’s not often the creator of an entertainment franchise describes his upcoming movie as potentially “clunky” and “weird,” but that’s what Dallas Jenkins does—on-screen, no less —for his Christmas film that includes music videos and lengthy monologues surrounded by a narrative about Jesus Christ.
Jenkins is the creator of The Chosen, one of the world’s most popular TV shows with 600 million episode views and 10 million followers on social media. The show about the life of Jesus, now in its third of a planned seven seasons, will have been dubbed in 50 languages by year’s end and is seen on Netflix, Peacock, Amazon Prime, The CW and The Chosen app.
And debuting on December 12 is a theatrical release dubbed, Christmas with the Chosen: Holy Night.
Courtesy of The Chosen
Newsweek viewed an advance copy of the movie, which begins by segueing from a music video by Christian artist Zach Williams to a soliloquy from Jenkins, who informs the audience that a chunk of the movie features two of his short films mashed together.
“We all figured it would be clunky, that it would probably look and feel a little weird,” he says in the movie.
The two shorts were previously dubbed The Shepherd and The Messengers. Jenkins shot the former several years ago and it served as the pilot episode for The Chosen, while the latter, more polished in terms of production value, debuted in 2021 as the theatrical release, Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers.
“In Hollywood, you don’t put together two opposing production values into the same piece of content. It’s jarring,” said Katherine Warnock, vice president of original content for The Chosen. “Yet, when we put together the first rough edit, we thought it was just magical. It’s gritty; it’s authentic; it’s our origin story.”
The narrative portion of the film, therefore, is replete with flashbacks and flash-forwards as Mary, mother of Jesus, shares her son’s garment with follower Mary Magdalene after the Crucifixion, with scenes of Christ’s birth in a manger intermingled. Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in the series, does not appear in the upcoming Christmas movie.
A couple of highlights are music videos featuring One Voice Children’s Choir, a group of kids ages 5-17 who sing, What Child is This, and an original production of Andrea Bocelli and his son, Matteo, singing Oh Holy Night at a marble and rock quarry in Tuscany, Italy.
Also, Dallas Jenkins’ wife, Amanda, and Tyler Thompson, a Chosen writer, appear at the River Jordan and the Dead Sea to deliver monologues that weave science, nature, history and geography with biblical faith.
Christmas content in Hollywood has taken off in the advent of the cheesy, romantic offerings from the Hallmark Channel that are so popular, they’ve been copied by the likes of Netflix, Fox News, Great American Family and Lifetime.
But Warnock acknowledges The Chosen’s Christmas film doesn’t have a whole lot in common with those, and that’s just fine. She also promises there’s much more to come.
“We would love to become a family tradition every year at Christmas. What I love about Hollywood is that there’s room for a plethora of content,” she says. ‘Next year, we have a long list of artists we’d like to work with. There’s no litmus test.”
Two years ago, Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers earned $13.8 million at the box office via a partnership with Fathom Events, which brings exclusive content to 4,000 movie screens nationwide and splits revenue with rights holders. Christmas with The Chosen: Holy Night is also a partnership with Fathom and will be in theaters for five nights.
Perhaps inevitably, the popularity of The Chosen has stirred up pockets of controversy. In August, for example, Voddie Baucham, an influential American pastor who is dean of theology at African Christian University in Zambia and an outspoken detractor of Critical Race Theory, told a podcaster he won’t watch The Chosen because it’s a violation of the Second Commandment against graven images.
Dallas Jenkins responded to Baucham with a Facebook post saying that, “No one is worshiping the TV screen; we’re not claiming the show is the Bible or Jonathan is actually Jesus.”
And two years earlier, an outlet called Gospel Matters complained that The Chosen takes “creative liberties” by filling in the gaps of Scripture and that it’s being watched by so many people who haven’t read the Bible that “their understanding of who Jesus and the disciples were may be tainted.”
Such criticism hasn’t seemed to slow down The Chosen, both on the small and big screens, and Dallas Jenkins told Newsweek in May that there are spinoffs and other biblical tales in the works from the parent company, which has also been dubbed The Chosen.
Also, there’s a deal in place to release theatrically all of the upcoming fourth-season episodes of The Chosen in movie theaters, also via Fathom.
In order to make the first season of The Chosen more than four years ago, Dallas Jenkins and company raised $11 million online in a campaign that set a record for a crowdfunded entertainment project.
Brad Pelo, president of The Chosen, told Newsweek in May that 16,500 people participated in the equity crowdfunding, thus they now collectively own 46 percent of the company. At that time, each investor had earned a 20 percent profit, as The Chosen had raked in $200 million in revenue by then.
Separate from The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins is in Canada filming for Lionsgate — known for blockbuster franchises like The Hunger Games and John Wick—The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, based on the 1971 children’s novel by Barbara Robinson.
“It’s the story of a family that’s a hot mess. By the end, a beautiful story of redemption unfolds. It’s quirky and perfect, and Dallas will do an amazing job,” said Warnock.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.