When the fourth season of the series The Chosen was ready to be released in the United States, executives at Angel Studios, a powerful independent studio specializing in religious material, decided to up the ante. After raising $40 million by showing the last episode of the third in theaters on the same day it could be seen on Netflix, Amazon, The CW and Peacock, NBC’s platform, chose to change the distribution strategy.
At an event in Dallas in October called The Chosen Insider Conference, attended by 3,500 people, and followed online by many thousands of fans, they announced that the first three episodes could only be seen in theaters during the first two weeks of February. the next three in the same way starting on the 15th and the last two starting on the 29th, with similar initiatives in Latin America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Poland, and New Zealand. In Spain, the first two episodes of the fourth season were released in more than one hundred movie theaters in mid-February.
And although Dallas Jenkins, the creator of the series, publicly admitted in recent days that due to legal problems the new season will not be able to arrive on American platforms until further notice, something that will not happen with Spanish viewers who will be able to see it in full on Movistar Plus starting next Thursday, the move is undoubtedly the reflection of a true phenomenon that has revolutionized the way of distributing content for television. La 1 has also announced that it will premiere it openly during this Holy Week.
Dubbed today in 50 languages ??and with subtitles in another 600, The Chosen tells the story of Jesus Christ as it is reflected in the Bible with a high level of production and a primarily historical perspective. Its protagonist, Jonathan Rumie, has become a true star who has been received twice by the Pope, and each episode is devoured with the same passion by evangelical and Catholic audiences, who also screen episodes in churches of various denominations as well as in prisons.
Dallas, son of a famous writer of religious novels, Jerry B. Jenkins, who later joined the family business with literary adaptations of the series, first tried to make a traditional career in Hollywood, but failed again and again. When his last film, The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, barely made $2 million, he decided it was time to go back to the sources.
Using a short film he had filmed in 2014, The Two Thieves, with Rumie as Jesus, and with the help of Angel Studios, he received 10 million dollars from small investors through the crowdfunding system to film the first season, made entirely in Texas. , where he built the sets that recreate the biblical Jerusalem.
Certainly Dallas did not imagine that The Chosen would become a true phenomenon, since it is estimated that 100 million people around the world have seen at least one episode. Designed to extend over seven seasons, the fourth develops the relationship of Jesus with his disciples, particularly with Simon (Shahar Isaac), who receives the new name of Peter, but also appears the visit of Mary to Elizabeth, who she is pregnant with John the Baptist and the moment when Zechariah’s tongue is unstuck, among many other emblematic moments taken from the New Testament.
Throughout the eight episodes it becomes clear that Jesus has already become a very self-confident leader, which makes the villains of the story, the Romans, led by Quintus (Brandon Potter), very nervous. too often resort to violence.
