Newsbites: The Chosen universe! The Passion sequel!
Newsbites: The Chosen universe! The Passion sequel!
Dallas Jenkins and Mel Gibson could both be diving into the Old Testament and bringing the Resurrection to the big screen in the next few years.
The Chosen announces new shows about Joseph, Moses, Acts, and more
A year and a half after The Chosen Inc.’s president of production teased the creation of a Chosen “universe”, series creator Dallas Jenkins made it official last night during a presentation at The Chosen Insiders Conference (aka ChosenCon).
Some of the key announcements (with a few comments by me):
The Chosen Seasons 5-7 will come out closer to Easter than Season 4 did, partly because the producers want to plan “global theatrical events” that will take place each year around Easter, and also because the extra time will allow them to translate the show into more languages in anticipation of those events.
In his presentation, Jenkins seemed to indicate that Seasons 5-7 will be coming out in 2026, 2027, and 2028—which would mean that Season 5, which has already been filmed, isn’t coming out for another year and a half—but a press release issued right after the announcement said they’re coming out in 2025, 2026, and 2027. So, Season 5 should be out in six or seven months.
The Chosen Adventures, an animated series inspired by the third episode of The Chosen (in which Jesus hung out with some children), is already in production and will come out in 2025. It will consist of 14 episodes.
In addition to some of The Chosen’s regular actors, the voice cast will include Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird), Yvonne Orji (Insecure), and Jordin Sparks (a singer whose acting credits include the 2014 version of Left Behind, based on the novel co-written by Jenkins’ father Jerry B. Jenkins).
The Chosen in the Wild with Bear Grylls, an “unscripted” series that is already in production, will feature Jenkins and members of The Chosen’s cast hanging from cliffs and whatnot with the titular Grylls (described in the press release as a “celebrity survivalist and adventurer”). It will consist of six episodes.
The Chosen: Joseph is currently being developed as an eight-episode miniseries. It will come out before Season 7 of The Chosen.
The Chosen: Book of Moses is currently being developed as a three-season series that will be directed by Jenkins himself after The Chosen is finished.
Jenkins told Variety the series will cover “the three eras of the Moses story. One is the rescue from Egypt. Two is the parting of the Red Sea, the escape, the Exodus and the progression towards the promised land. And then the third season would be after the 40 years of wandering in the desert, as they’re going to actually capture the promised land, Moses actually doesn’t get a chance to experience that. He hands off leadership.”
Moses and his successor Joshua have already appeared in The Chosen, in the prologue to an episode that came out five years ago. I have no idea if the same actors would be playing those characters now.
Certain members of The Chosen’s cast and crew are already producing a series about Moses called The Promised Land, which reimagines the story as a mockumentary à la The Office. That series is not part of the Chosen universe, but it will be interesting to see if the two shows overlap, release-wise.
The Way of the Chosen is currently being developed as a series that will follow the disciples of Jesus after the events of the gospels, as per the book of Acts.
The Chosen has already gone out of its way to include Gentiles as part of the Jesus movement, so I can’t help wondering how this series will handle the fact that no Gentiles were allowed in the Church until some time after the Resurrection (as per Acts 10-11). Will some of the people who are currently included in the movement be excluded, and then re-included…?
Here is the promotional art that was released for all the newly-announced shows:
You can also watch the livestream of the presentation here; it includes a four-minute clip from The Chosen Adventures, which starts after the 73-minute mark:
Jenkins also introduced a new trailer for his film The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which comes to theatres November 8 (and will have special early screenings on November 2 that include an exclusive sneak peek of The Chosen Season 5). The studio released the trailer as a standalone video immediately after the ChosenCon intro:
Mel Gibson scouting locations for The Passion of the Christ 2?
Variety reports that Mel Gibson is scouting locations in Europe for his long-gestating sequel to The Passion of the Christ:
Earlier this week Gibson reportedly toured Malta with a production team and subsequently arrived in the Southern Italian region of Puglia where he visited various rural locations, including the ancient towns of Ginosa, Gravina Laterza and Altamura, Puglia Film Commission director Antonio Parente said.
Gibson and his co-writer, Randall Wallace, have been talking openly about making a sequel to The Passion for at least eight years. In September 2016, Gibson said the film might jump back and forth between the Old and New Testaments; and two months later, he hinted on Stephen Colbert’s show that the movie might show Jesus descending into Hell (or, as he put it, “another realm”) and facing the demons there.
In October 2020, Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the original film and is expected to play him again, said the script had gone through three or five drafts, and by January 2023 it was reportedly up to six. So the rumours about this project have never died down. But this report about the location scouting is the first strong hint we’ve had of any physical activity on the movie beyond the writing of the script.
It will be interesting to see how quickly things move from here, and how the release of this film coincides with The Chosen’s release schedule (given that all future seasons of The Chosen are going to be Easter releases, and given that it would be very surprising if the Passion sequel wasn’t an Easter release too). A few possible scenarios:
Gibson finishes the film in time for Easter 2026, which is when Season 6 of The Chosen—the one that dramatizes the Crucifixion—comes out. Moviegoers could conceivably watch the death of one Jesus in one room and then walk across the multiplex to watch the resurrection of another Jesus in another room.
Gibson finishes the film in time for Easter 2027, which is when Season 7 of The Chosen—the one that dramatizes the Resurrection—comes out. Moviegoers would have a choice between two movies about the Resurrection. Will the two films be rivals? Or will they give each other a boost, ‘Barbenheimer’-style?
Gibson finishes the film in time for Easter 2028, after The Chosen is done, which would mean that—starting with Season 5 of The Chosen in 2025—there’d be a major Holy Week or Easter film in theatres four Easters in a row.
Or maybe Gibson will finish the film even later than that, or maybe he will never make it at all in the end. Who knows. But I’m curious to see how this all plays out.
Incidentally, I can’t resist noting that both of the actors playing Jesus in these projects are already in their 50s. (Roumie turned 50 in July, and Caviezel turns 56 next week.)
Admittedly, both actors first played Jesus when they were in their 30s; Caviezel was 35 when The Passion of the Christ came out, and Roumie was 39 when he first played Jesus in a short film directed by Dallas Jenkins called The Two Thieves.1
And it is not entirely unprecedented to see a popular Jesus actor play the role again at a much older age; Bruce Marchiano, who was 37 or so when he played Jesus in The Visual Bible, has played the character many times since, at least into his late 50s (and possibly into his 60s, if the modern-day series The Encounter counts).
But to see Roumie and Caviezel play the character in their 50s simultaneously, and in such high-profile projects, would still be an interesting coincidence.2
Roumie was 44 when the first season of The Chosen came out, which fits into a larger recent pattern of actors in their 40s playing Jesus (examples include Ewan McGregor in Last Days in the Desert, Cliff Curtis in Risen, and Joaquin Phoenix in Mary Magdalene).
For what it’s worth, the only actor I can think of who played Jesus for the first time in his 50s is H.B. Warner, who was 51 when The King of Kings came out in 1927.