Biblical box office: How productions like The Chosen are bringing Christianity to a screen near you
Wave of Christian programming is changing tenor and culture of TV and Hollywood, experts say
Last weekend was something of a Sunday school special for the box office.
In a surprise show of strength, the Dickens adaptation King of Kings, telling the story of Jesus Christ's life and crucifixion, exploded with a $19-million US debut. For an animated movie in April, this was surprising — given the fact it was a biblical blockbuster, even more so.
Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt set the opening-weekend high water-mark for a faith-based animated film back in 1998. But in terms of scriptural media, the success of King of Kings is far from a one-off.
The recent fifth season of The Chosen also outperformed expectations. Plus, the Christian series saw its first three parts premiere in theatres to a combined total of more than $36 million US, helping cement religious programming as an appetizing genre for studios and audiences alike.
"People are hungry for something. They're hungry for change. They're hungry for positive. They're hungry for light," explained The Chosen's Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus, during an interview with CBC. "They're hungry for the light that the gospels ultimately provide."
Earlier this year, Amazon Prime Video's House of David — charting the rise of the biblical shepherd boy — had more than 22 million tuning in for the first 17 days after its February release. According to Amazon MGM Studios, that placed it in the top 10 of U.S. series debuts.
Lionsgate's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever — the proselytizing, Pete Holmes-led Christmas movie — managed an already impressive $40 million US, which was made even more impressive by the fact it was competing with heavyweights Wicked and Moana 2.
Meanwhile, Christ-derived stories from Martin Scorsese (The Life of Jesus), Terrence Malick (The Way of the Wind) and Mel Gibson (two sequels to The Passion) are all reportedly in the works. According to Roumie, that interest and the recent successes speak to a widespread fanbase with a variety of beliefs.
"I think ... about 30 per cent of our audience globally does not identify as religious or churchgoing, whether that be agnostic or atheistic," he said of The Chosen. "To us, that's just an increasing proof that the power of this series is in its storytelling."
It's far from the first time Christianity has buttressed the box office. In Hollywood's early efforts to differentiate itself from the new invention of television, studios shifted away from creating a lot of productions to funnelling their money into fewer but more big-budget spectacles, according to University of Bologna associate professor Marco Cucco.
The hope was that they would convince audiences a trip to the theatre was worth it. To further cement the appeal, those early precursors to the modern-day blockbuster largely drew from historical stories, legends and fables that people were already aware of. That included biblical tales, like Ben-Hur, The Greatest Story Ever Told, 1961's live-action King of Kings and The Ten Commandments.
It wasn't until the stunning success of Jaws fundamentally shifted the cinematic landscape toward action films in the mid-1970s that that biblical formula started to fade.
'It's supposed to speak to the human experience'
Catholic priest and film critic Eric Mah said the wind had more or less left the sails for faith-based films. The reason for their return to prominence, he argued, is in the updated way in which these stories are told.
"The thing about religion just in general, if it's lived authentically and is taught authentically, it's supposed to speak to the human experience," he said.
"Before, the focus was on making Christian films with the purpose of catechesis or evangelization. And now I think people are just focused on making good films, which I think actually is the way to go, right?"
But there's more than just faith at play. Many of these productions — including The Chosen and King of Kings — got their start with Angel Studios. (After an initial association, The Chosen and Angel Studios parted ways in early 2024.)
The studio was founded by brothers affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and has since pumped out a multitude of Christian and Christian-adjacent content.
That includes 2023's Sound of Freedom, the seemingly secular film about child trafficking starring The Passion of the Christ's Jim Caviezel. It would eventually become embroiled in a culture war, and found itself connected to religiosity despite having no overt link to it.
"Even though Sound of Freedom wasn't perhaps an explicitly Christian film, the fact that [audiences] made that connection between 'OK, this is the guy who played Jesus there,' that almost, in a certain sense, was enough to satisfy the religious longing," said Mah.
But that connection went deeper than just a familiar face. Part of the association, Wall Street Journal entertainment reporter John Jurgensen says, is a cultural one.
"Here was a movie that had zero to do, on the surface, with religion or God. But because of the story it was telling about child trafficking, it was kind of ringing a bell for people who identify as Christian or identify as religious who care about that as a subject," he said.
Art in general, Jurgensen said, has become a "huge battleground" in the culture wars, where ideology is hashed out through the success of productions that come to represent those ideas.
Jurgensen says if audiences believe that a culture or political bent has been historically underrepresented, it can motivate them to vote with their dollars to support it.
"These things are emotional triggers for us, whether it's the music we listen to or the stories on screen that move us. And if audiences feel they come from a place that is native to these folks or to these fans and familiar, that just makes their following more passionate," he said.
That's paired with an increased desire from audience for uplifting, positive content and a desire for independent productions — like The Chosen — separate from the "bubble of Hollywood." Jurgensen said the genre's rise is also at least partially tied to the pendulum of cultural trends that isn't likely to swing back anytime soon.
"What we spend our money on, what we show to our families, has really become a point of contention for people who are staking out just different ways of thinking, and who want to see their viewpoints represented on the screens that they sit in front of," he said.
"It's not necessarily the reason someone is buying that ticket. But I have a feeling that when pressed to talk about how it fits into their broader views of the world, they really see this as part of who they are."
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With files from Makda Ghebreslassie and Griffin Jaeger