Newsbites: David! The King of Kings! Ruth & Boaz! Zero A.D.! Light of the World!
The makers of The Chosen partner with the makers of an animated Bible movie; Zero A.D. gets new character posters; and more.
Dallas Jenkins’ 5&2 Studios partners with animated David producers
5&2 Studios, the production company founded by The Chosen co-writer/director Dallas Jenkins, issued a press release this week announcing that they have formed a partnership with Slingshot Productions to secure and manage “all global distribution and licensing agreements” for David, an animated film about the shepherd-turned-king-of-Israel that has been in the works for at least four years.
The press release says the film—which was originally going to be released by Angel Studios later this year—is still aiming for a “global cinematic release in 2025”, but it also says 5&2 Studios is “currently seeking a partner for theatrical distribution”, so it’s not clear the film will be able to stick to its original schedule.
The press release also doesn’t shed any light on the status of a lawsuit that Slingshot filed against Angel Studios last March, after terminating its distribution agreement with the studio. Based on the information at the film’s official website, it would seem the lawsuit is still ongoing… or perhaps the website needs to be updated.1
Either way, I assume any potential distributor would want to know that the film’s legal status had been settled first before they signed on to the project.
5&2 founder Jenkins, of course, has a history of his own with Angel Studios. The studio helped get his series The Chosen off the ground by organizing a crowd-funding campaign for it back in 2018, but Jenkins and his partners terminated their contract with Angel in early 2023, after Season 3 had come out, and the matter wasn’t resolved until May 2024—which delayed the streaming release of Season 4.
The Chosen now has an exclusive streaming deal with Prime Video, which is currently the only place to see the recently-completed Season 5—the season will also start streaming on The Chosen’s app sometime next month—but Jenkins indicated in a livestream last June that the legal wrangling with Angel might not be over yet (fast-forward to 17:37 in the video below).
In the video, Jenkins alludes to other filmmakers who have apparently had legal issues with Angel, and I wondered at the time if he was thinking of the David team. So it’s interesting to see that his company is now partnering with them.
In any case, I’ll be keeping an ear out for more news about this in the future.
The King of Kings passes even more milestones in South Korea
Time for another update on The King of Kings’ South Korean release.
The last time we checked in on the film, which opened in its native South Korea July 16, it had sold 900,000 tickets in its first seventeen days. Since then…
It reached 1,000,000 admissions on its 19th day (Sunday, August 3)
And it reached 1,100,000 admissions on its 25th day (Saturday, August 9)
Its total currently stands at 1,118,636 admissions.
The King of Kings is now the top-grossing animated movie in South Korea this year, and the 16th-highest-grossing film overall.
It is also now one of the top three South Korean animated movies ever within its home country, behind Heartsping: Teenieping of Love (2024, 1.23 million admissions) and Leafie, A Hen into the Wild (2011, 2.2 million admissions).
The King of Kings has been one of the top four films at the South Korean box office nearly every day since its release,2 so there’s a good chance it could pass Heartsping in total admissions before too long.
The King of Kings has now grossed at least $76.3 million worldwide so far, of which $7.6 million—or about one tenth—comes from South Korea.
New image for Ruth & Boaz, new posters for Zero A.D.
Collider is releasing a bunch of “exclusive” images and posters right now, and a few of them are tied to upcoming Bible films.
First, there is the image above from Ruth & Boaz, a modernized version of the biblical story that is coming to Netflix September 26. (It looks like the image comes from the same scene as the clip that was released last month, but we’ll see.)
Collider also has a brief interview with producer Devon Franklin, who says the film will make the story feel “contemporary and fresh and relevant to the culture” by focusing on (as the site summarizes it) “‘chivalry’ and the task of ‘seeing one another’ in a relationship, specifically in a world that [Franklin] describes as being ‘transactional.’”
There is still no indication as to whether the film will deal with the political-cultural subtext of the story, or how the relationship between Ruth and Boaz implicitly challenged the Mosaic law against mixed marriages, especially where Moabites like Ruth were concerned (Deuteronomy 23:3; Nehemiah 13:1-3, 23-31).
Next, Collider has new character posters for Zero A.D., the Nativity movie coming to theatres from Angel Studios December 19.
The posters feature Mary (Deva Cassel), Joseph (Jamie Ward), Mary’s father Joachim (Gael García Bernal), the demonic Nahash (whose name means “serpent”; Ben Mendelsohn), Herod (Jim Caviezel), and Herod’s son Antipater (Sam Worthington).
Angel has already released a teaser and a trailer for the film. Looks interesting.
Light of the World releases new 30-second trailer
And the videos keep on coming. With just four weeks to go until the film’s release, the makers of Light of the World, an animated Jesus movie coming to theatres September 5, have released a new 30-second trailer. You can watch it above.
Previous videos for Light of the World:
The ‘The Heart of Light of the World’ video (October 26, 2024)
The teaser (November 12, 2024)
The clip of Mary talking to John about Jesus’ birth (December 20, 2024)
The children’s-ministry curriculum video (February 10, 2025)
The ‘What Is Truth?’ clip and the ‘Launch Team Introduction’ video (March 26, 2025)
The trailer (April 10, 2025)
The ‘Jesus Heals Mary Magdalene’ clip (May 21, 2025)
The Shane & Shane music video (May 30, 2025)
The ‘The Disciples Meet’ clip and the 60-second trailer (June 16, 2025)
The ‘Designing Jesus for Light of the World’ video (July 18, 2025)
The ‘Is Poppa Right?’ clip (August 2, 2025)
More information about Light of the World is available at LightoftheWorld.com.
Upcoming Bible movies and TV shows:
August 11, 2025 — Judas’ Gospel (theatrical: Locarno Film Festival)
September 4-14, 2025 — You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution... (theatrical: Toronto International Film Festival)
September 5, 2025 — Light of the World (theatrical: Salvation Poem Project)
September 26, 2025 — Ruth & Boaz (streaming: Netflix)
Fall 2025 — House of David: Season 2 (streaming: Prime Video - Wonder Project)
November 2025 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 1 (streaming: Fox Nation)
December 19, 2025 — Zero A.D. (theatrical: Angel Studios)
2025 (no month specified) — The Carpenter’s Son (theatrical: Magnolia)
2025 (no month specified) — The Chosen Adventures (streaming)
2025 (no month specified) — The Promised Land: Season 1 (streaming)
March 22-April 5, 2026 — The Faithful (television: Fox)
April-May 2026 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 2 (streaming: Fox Nation)
second half of 2026 — The Chosen: Season 6: Episodes 1-6 (streaming: Prime Video)
March 12, 2027 — The Chosen: Season 6: Finale (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
March 26, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One (theatrical: Lionsgate)
May 6, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part Two (theatrical: Lionsgate)
March 31, 2028 — The Chosen: Season 7: Premiere (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
no release date specified — David (theatrical)
no release date specified — Jacob (theatrical: Angel Studios)
no release date specified — Joseph of Egypt (streaming: Prime Video)
who knows when Malick will finish it — The Way of the Wind (theatrical)
One sign that the legal issues might not have been resolved in Slingshot’s favour (yet): the prequel series Young David is still streaming on the Angel platform, despite the fact that the movie’s website says the series is being shown “exclusively” on another platform now.