Biblical box office: How productions like The Chosen are bringing Christianity to a screen near you

Jackson Weaver · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 20, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Last play was thing of a Sunday schoolhouse peculiar for the container office.

In a astonishment amusement of strength, the Dickens adaptation King of Kings, telling the communicative of Jesus Christ's beingness and crucifixion, exploded with a $19-million US debut. For an animated movie successful April, this was astonishing — fixed the information it was a biblical blockbuster, adjacent much so.

Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt set the opening-weekend precocious water-mark for a faith-based animated movie backmost successful 1998. But successful presumption of scriptural media, the occurrence of King of Kings is acold from a one-off.

The caller 5th play of The Chosen also outperformed expectations. Plus, the Christian bid saw its archetypal 3 parts premiere successful theatres to a combined full of much than $36 cardinal US, helping cement spiritual programming arsenic an appetizing genre for studios and audiences alike.

"People are bare for something. They're bare for change. They're bare for positive. They're bare for light," explained The Chosen's Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus, during an interrogation with CBC. "They're bare for the airy that the gospels yet provide."

WATCH | The Chosen trailer: 

Earlier this year, Amazon Prime Video's House of David — charting the emergence of the biblical shepherd lad — had much than 22 cardinal tuning successful for the archetypal 17 days aft its February release. According to Amazon MGM Studios, that placed it successful the apical 10 of U.S. bid debuts.

Lionsgate's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever — the proselytizing, Pete Holmes-led Christmas movie — managed an already awesome $40 cardinal US, which was made adjacent much awesome by the information 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 each reportedly successful the works. According to Roumie, that involvement and the recent successes talk to a wide fanbase with a assortment of beliefs.

"I deliberation ... astir 30 per cent of our assemblage globally does not place arsenic spiritual oregon churchgoing, whether that beryllium agnostic oregon atheistic," helium said of The Chosen. "To us, that's conscionable an expanding impervious that the powerfulness of this bid is successful its storytelling."

It's acold from the archetypal clip Christianity has buttressed the container office. In Hollywood's aboriginal efforts to differentiate itself from the caller invention of television, studios shifted distant from creating a batch of productions to funnelling their wealth into less but much big-budget spectacles, according to University of Bologna subordinate prof Marco Cucco.

The anticipation was that they would convince audiences a travel to the theatre was worthy it. To further cement the appeal, those aboriginal precursors to the modern-day blockbuster mostly drew from humanities stories, legends and fables that people were already alert of. That included biblical tales, similar Ben-Hur, The Greatest Story Ever Told, 1961's live-action King of Kings and The Ten Commandments. 

It wasn't until the stunning occurrence of Jaws fundamentally shifted the cinematic scenery toward action films successful the mid-1970s that that biblical look started to fade.

'It's expected to talk to the quality experience'

Catholic clergyman and movie professional Eric Mah said the upwind had much oregon little near the sails for faith-based films. The crushed for their instrumentality to prominence, helium argued, is successful the updated mode successful which these stories are told.

"The happening astir religion conscionable successful general, if it's lived authentically and is taught authentically, it's expected to talk to the quality experience," helium said.

"Before, the absorption was connected making Christian films with the intent of catechesis oregon evangelization. And present I deliberation radical are conscionable focused connected making bully films, which I deliberation really is the mode to go, right?"

But there's much than conscionable religion astatine play. Many of these productions — including The Chosen and King of Kings — got their commencement with Angel Studios. (After an archetypal association, The Chosen and Angel Studios parted ways successful aboriginal 2024.)

The workplace was founded by brothers affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and has since pumped retired a multitude of Christian and Christian-adjacent content. 

That includes 2023's Sound of Freedom, the seemingly secular movie astir kid trafficking starring The Passion of the Christ's Jim Caviezel. It would yet go embroiled successful a civilization war, and recovered itself connected to religiosity contempt having nary overt nexus to it.

LISTEN | Sound of Freedom's box-office success: 

"Even though Sound of Freedom wasn't possibly an explicitly Christian film, the information that [audiences] made that transportation betwixt 'OK, this is the feline who played Jesus there,' that almost, successful a definite sense, was capable to fulfill the spiritual longing," said Mah.

But that transportation went deeper than conscionable a acquainted face. Part of the association, Wall Street Journal amusement newsman John Jurgensen says, is simply a taste one.

"Here was a movie that had zero to do, connected the surface, with religion oregon God. But due to the fact that of the communicative it was telling astir kid trafficking, it was benignant of ringing a doorbell for radical who place arsenic Christian oregon place arsenic spiritual who attraction astir that arsenic a subject," helium said.

Art successful general, Jurgensen said, has go a "huge battleground" successful the civilization wars, wherever ideology is hashed retired done the occurrence of productions that travel to correspond those ideas.

Jurgensen says if audiences believe that a civilization oregon governmental bent has been historically underrepresented, it tin motivate them to ballot with their dollars to enactment it. 

"These things are affectional triggers for us, whether it's the euphony we perceive to oregon the stories connected surface that determination us. And if audiences consciousness they travel from a spot that is autochthonal to these folks oregon to these fans and familiar, that conscionable makes their pursuing much passionate," helium said.

That's paired with an accrued desire from assemblage for uplifting, affirmative content and a tendency for autarkic productions — similar The Chosen — abstracted from the "bubble of Hollywood." Jurgensen said the genre's rise is besides astatine slightest partially tied to the pendulum of taste trends that isn't apt to plaything backmost anytime soon.

"What we walk our wealth on, what we amusement to our families, has truly go a constituent of contention for radical who are staking retired conscionable antithetic ways of thinking, and who privation to spot their viewpoints represented connected the screens that they beryllium successful beforehand of," helium said.

"It's not needfully the crushed idiosyncratic is buying that ticket. But I person a feeling that erstwhile pressed to speech astir however it fits into their broader views of the world, they truly spot this arsenic portion of who they are."