The Chosen's Season 3 finale is coming to theatres next month

The season's first two episodes were a box-office hit last November; the finale, which will have a much shorter theatrical window, will be a more modest affair.

Get ready to see the feeding of the 5,000 on the big screen!

We’ve known since October that The Chosen’s third-season finale might get a theatrical release before it started streaming, and tonight, series creator Dallas Jenkins made it official: Episodes 7 and 8 will play in theatres in early February, and both episodes will then start streaming just a few days later.

Here are the details, which Jenkins revealed after hosting a livestream of Episode 6:

• Episodes 7 & 8 will play in theatres on February 2 & 3, with two showings per day.

• Tickets will be available via Fathom Events.

• Episode 7 will start streaming on Sunday February 5.

• Episode 8 will start streaming just a couple days later; Jenkins assured the show’s fans that they would not have to wait an entire extra week to see it online.

Last November and December, The Chosen Season 3: Episodes 1 & 2 made headlines by grossing $14.6 million at a time when many adult dramas were floundering at the box office. (The Banshees of Inisherin and The Fabelmans, the two Oscar front-runners that won Best Picture awards at the Golden Globes last week, have grossed only $9.3 million and $14.2 million, respectively, in North America so far.)

Jenkins emphasized tonight that Episodes 7 & 8 will not make that kind of money at the box office, partly because the episodes will start streaming just a few days after they play in theatres, instead of waiting a few weeks like the first two episodes did.

As it is, fans will have to wait three weeks after tonight’s episode to see what happens next in the series—the first six episodes have been streaming at a steady pace of one per week since mid-December—and Jenkins conceded that that might seem like “bad news” to some fans, but he also said the theatrical release of Episodes 7 & 8 was meant to be a “gift” to hardcore fans of the series who wanted to see big events like the feeding of the 5,000 on the biggest screens possible. (He then qualified his use of the word “gift” by noting that fans would still have to pay for their tickets!)

A few other thoughts about the timing of this release, if I may:

• Episodes 7 & 8 will be playing in theatres one week after the January 26 release of Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist, the latest movie to be based on the Left Behind novels written by Dallas Jenkins’ father Jerry B. Jenkins. (The director and star of that film, Kevin Sorbo, also previously starred in Dallas’s film What If…)

• There are three films going into wide release on February 3, the weekend Episodes 7 & 8 come out: the senior sports-fan comedy 80 for Brady, the animated film The Amazing Maurice, and the M. Night Shyamalan thriller Knock at the Cabin.

• If the final episode of The Chosen Season 3 starts streaming just a couple days after February 5, then the entire season will be finished just a couple weeks before Jesus Revolution comes to theatres February 24. As I’ve noted before, that movie has certain overlaps with The Chosen, starting with the casting of Jonathan Roumie—The Chosen’s Jesus—as a hippie preacher who models himself after Jesus.

And what’s next for The Chosen after this? Well, I believe Season 4 starts shooting this spring. Presumably it will start rolling out sometime before the end of the year.

In the meantime, I’ve got to start posting my analyses of Season 3. Stay tuned.

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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 | eight

• Season 2: The Messengers review | scripture index
  Episode recaps: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | The Messengers

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