Is The Chosen going to get its own "universe"?
The new president of production at The Chosen Inc. says there is "a desire to tell a lot of different biblical stories".
Deadline reports that The Chosen has appointed a new President of Production, with an eye towards expanding the show’s “universe”.
The newly appointed prez—a former DreamWorks and Universal studio executive named Mark Sourian—told Deadline the following:
“When you look at the Bible, not to sound crude, but it is a universe — not to describe it as the Marvel universe or the DC universe. But it is a universe with iconic figures and characters, and I include the Old Testament and the New Testament,” said Sourian. “There is a desire to tell a lot of different biblical stories, all of which are primal stories that have been told in one fashion or another, but have never been told specifically as they relate directly to the Bible.”
Continued Sourian, “there’s a sense of an ever-increasing bandwidth for us to tell other stories that are about the Bible…So, I think my role and my title suggests a bigger universe and suggests the desire of The Chosen Inc. to delve into more of that.”
A few quick thoughts about this:
The Chosen has already dabbled in Old Testament stories via episode-specific prologues and framing devices featuring characters like Jacob, Moses, and David. It has also had flash-forwards to the period covered by the book of Acts. So the basis for some sort of “expanded universe” is arguably there already.
Would these other shows use the same actors for those characters that The Chosen used? Would any of The Chosen’s future prologues and framing devices be written with specific spin-offs in mind, the way that, say, the second season of The Mandalorian was clearly setting up future Star Wars shows?
I assume this “universe” will be completely separate from the series of films that David Helling hopes to launch with His Only Son, a movie about Abraham and Isaac that is coming out this week. That film is being distributed by Angel Studios, the same company that distributes The Chosen, but it was produced by a completely separate team, and it already features its own version of Jesus—a much more divine, mystical, transfigured sort of Jesus than what we’ve seen in The Chosen so far—so it wouldn’t really fit with The Chosen on that level.1
Four years ago—and a few weeks before The Chosen released its first half-season—the Erwin brothers announced that they were going to produce a trilogy of films set in “a new cinematic universe of Biblical stories”, starting with a film called Apostles: Resurrection of Christ. Since then, there has been some cross-pollination between The Chosen and the Erwin brothers’ productions, most notably in the casting of Jonathan Roumie (The Chosen’s Jesus) as Lonnie Frisbee in Jesus Revolution. Are the Erwin brothers still planning to produce their own biblical cinematic universe while The Chosen is setting up its cinematic universe?
Side note: Apostles was one of four films that the Erwin brothers announced four years ago. Of the other three films, two—I Still Believe and Jesus Revolution—have now been completed. The third was a “period musical” called The Drummer Boy, to be written and directed by the Smallbone brothers (aka the pop duo For King & Country). Curiously, I haven’t heard anything about that film since, but For King & Country did perform ‘Little Drummer Boy’ in The Chosen’s first Christmas special in 2020, and Joel Smallbone is now playing King Herod’s son Antipater in Adam Anders’ Christmas musical.
The Chosen started shooting its fourth season this week, and series creator Dallas Jenkins is hosting another livestream this Sunday to talk about that—and the show’s YouTube page says the livestream will feature “an exciting announcement”. Will the “bigger universe” be part of that announcement? We shall see.
Those are the thoughts that occur to me so far. More later, if I have any.
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The Chosen interviews:
Season 1: Dallas Jenkins, co-writer/director (Dec 2019)
Season 2: Dallas Jenkins, co-writer/director (May 2021) | Derral Eves, producer, on Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers (Nov 2021) | Dallas Jenkins on the ‘The Chosen Is Not Good’ marketing campaign (Apr 2022)
Season 3: Jordan Walker Ross, Little James (Oct 2022) | Vanessa Benavente, Mother Mary (Nov 2022) | Kirk B.R. Woller, Gaius (Nov 2022)
The Chosen recaps:
Season 1: review | scripture index
Episode recaps: The Shepherd | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eightSeason 2: The Messengers review | scripture index
Episode recaps: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | The MessengersSeason 3: Episodes 1 & 2 notes | Episodes 7 & 8 notes | scripture index
Episode recaps: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight
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The Chosen can be streamed via Angel Studios or the show’s app (Android | Apple).
Just to clarify: I don’t mean to suggest that there is any theological disagreement between The Chosen and His Only Son in their depictions of Jesus. But there are certainly different emphases. It’s the same sort of difference that you see when comparing, say, the gospels of Mark and John. Both gospels affirm the humanity and divinity of Jesus, but in different ways, and to different degrees. The differences between those gospels pose a challenge to movies and shows like The Chosen that try to weave those gospels into a single, harmonized story, and it would be an even bigger challenge to take adaptations of the Bible—each of which has its own aesthetic—and to try to harmonize those into a single storyline too.