The Chosen – new trailer, update on Season 3 theatrical release

The premiere is coming to theatres November 18, and the finale might get a theatrical release too.

Oct 26, 2022

The Chosen writer-director Dallas Jenkins hosted one of the shortest livestreams in the show’s history tonight. In the space of a mere 37 minutes, he answered a bunch of questions about the theatrical premiere of Season 3, and he released a new trailer for the premiere, too. (Last week’s trailer was for the season as a whole.)

Some of the key points he made:

Fathom Events is currently promoting a five-day release for the Season 3 premiere—between Friday November 18 and Tuesday November 22—but it will stay in theatres for “as long as it’s successful.” (Last year’s Christmas special was going to be a two-day release but it ended up running for a few weeks, at least.)
How wide will the release be? It is “currently approaching 2,000 theatres.” (Last year’s Christmas special opened in 1,700 theatres.)
The premiere will consist of the first two episodes from Season 3, preceded by a music video and one or two other very brief items. (The complete runtime, according to the Fathom Events website, is 109 minutes.)
The premiere will be released in five English-speaking countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The producers won’t be able to dub the episodes into any other languages in time for the theatrical release (which is three and a half weeks from now).
Jenkins doesn’t want people to buy tickets if they’re not going to the actual show. He said it’s nice to get money from sold-out venues, but he wants as many fans as possible to have a chance to actually see the premiere on the big screen. (Apparently a “sold-out” theatre he visited during last year’s Christmas-special release was only about half-full with actual people.)
Churches will be able to host screenings like they did last year, but there may be some restrictions so that the church screenings don’t undermine the theatrical release. Details are available at the Faith Content Network.
Jenkins and some of the cast members will attend a special advance screening in Atlanta on November 15 to raise money for a Salvation Army camp.
The season will start streaming in December, with new episodes coming out every week. Jenkins did not say whether each episode would get its own livestream the way that each episode of the much-more-unevenly-paced Season 2 did.
The producers are currently investigating the possibility of releasing the last two episodes of Season 3—the ones that depict the feeding of the 5,000—in theatres, too. (No timeline for that was given, but if there are eight episodes in total, and if one episode was released per week beginning in December, then the season would conclude in mid- to late January at the earliest.)

A few new details worth noting about the trailer:

Andrew will apparently visit John the Baptist in prison. This visit is not mentioned in the gospels, but Andrew was a follower of John’s before he became a follower of Jesus (John 1:35-42), so it stands to reason he might have visited John in prison, as some of John’s other followers did (Matthew 11:2-19, Luke 7:18-35). It will be interesting to see if Andrew joins John’s disciples in burying John (Mark 6:29, Matthew 14:12), assuming John’s execution takes place this season.
The voice-over from Jesus is heavy on themes of persecution and giving up one’s life, so there is a strong foreshadowing of the Crucifixion here—which is interesting, as I believe the Crucifixion itself won’t happen until Season 6.
Simon the Zealot will apparently encounter the Roman spy Atticus.

Back in August, when it was first announced that the season premiere would get a theatrical release in mid-November, I posted some thoughts on how the premiere has a good chance of being the biggest new release at the box office that week.

I still think that’s possible, though I’m curious as to how many showtimes the film is getting each day at the theatres that are showing it. Here in the Greater Vancouver area, where I live, the film is currently scheduled to play in five theatres—all of which are currently showing it only once or twice per day (and only at matinees on certain days). That could change, but most new movies get at least three shows per day.

Anyway. You can watch the livestream for yourself below:

October 26 update: The trailer is now available as a standalone video:

The Chosen recaps:

The Chosen can be streamed via VidAngel or the show’s app (Android | Apple).

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