Watch: The first ten minutes of David, plus a few other new clips from the animated box-office hit
Bigger than SpongeBob, and bigger than Sydney Sweeney: the animated biblical musical is currently on track to be the 2nd-biggest movie of the week, behind Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Good news for David fans: according to Deadline, the animated biblical musical is currently on track to be #2 at the box office this weekend, behind Avatar: Fire and Ash and ahead of fellow new releases The Housemaid (starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried) and The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.
The film earned $9.6 million yesterday, including preview screenings, and it is currently on track to gross $25 million or so for the weekend—which would give it:
the best first weekend of any Angel Studios release (previous champ: Sound of Freedom, 2023, $19.7mil, although that film opened on a Tuesday and had a first-Sunday cume of $41.7mil);
the best opening of any animated Bible movie (previous champ: Angel Studios’ The King of Kings, 2025, $19.4mil);
and the 3rd-best opening of any “faith-based” movie, behind The Passion of the Christ, 2004, $83.8mil and Son of God, 2014, $25.6mil.
I’ll have more data, including the usual studio- and genre-related charts, in Monday morning’s box-office update after the Sunday estimates come out.
In the meantime, Angel Studios has released some more new footage from the movie.
Most notably, their “Angel Clips” YouTube channel now has the first ten minutes of the film, which do a really good job of conveying its beautifully-animated family-friendly mix of humour, action, and music. You can watch the clip here:
A few quick notes (with spoilers, so watch the clip first!):
The first thing we see is a butterfly that alights on David’s staff. The butterfly as a symbol of God’s presence will be significant elsewhere in the film, notably when David picks the stone that he’ll use to kill Goliath. (We saw David pick that stone in a clip that was first revealed in August and then released in October.)
David saves his sheep from a lion by knocking it off a cliff, just as he did in the first episode of Young David. And, strikingly, he saves the lion too, after it is pinned behind a rock. The biblical David bragged about killing lions and bears (I Samuel 17:34-36), but the David of this franchise never kills any—quite the opposite, in fact.
Samuel pays Jesse’s family a visit, and he inspects all seven of David’s brothers—so the movie agrees with I Samuel 16:10-11 and 17:12, rather than I Chronicles 2:15, on the number of brothers that David had. On the other hand, the David of the film has just one sister, Zeruiah—whereas the biblical David had two (I Chronicles 2:16)—and she is very young. See my notes on the second episode of Young David for why I think the biblical Zeruiah was quite a bit older than this.
This clip includes the ‘Adventure Song’, which David sings to his sheep; it was released as a standalone clip last month.
This clip ends with David meeting Samuel. Shortly after this, Samuel will anoint David, as seen in ‘Samuel’s Blessing’, which was released as a standalone clip two months ago.
The studio has released a few other clips in the past few days, partly through its official YouTube channels and partly through other websites.
Here, via Moviefone, is a clip of Jonathan trying to encourage the Israelite soldiers while Goliath taunts them from a distance:
Here, via Animation World Network, is a clip of David and his men pretending to be Philistines as they try to infiltrate the Philistine army:
And here, via Angel Clips, is our first good look at Goliath himself… but it’s a cropped-on-the-sides vertical “short”, not a regular clip from the movie:
If I find any more clips in the next few days, I will add them to this post.
Previous videos for David:
The demo video (October 24, 2021)
A one-minute clip (August 31, 2025; starts at the 55:53 mark)
The ‘Follow the Light’ clip (October 9, 2025)
The pay-it-forward announcement with new footage (October 15, 2025)
The ‘Samuel’s Blessing’ clip (October 16, 2025)
The teaser and the ‘Tapestry’ clip (October 23, 2025)
The ‘Why God - My God’ clip (October 24, 2025)
The ‘I Will Not Be Afraid’ clip (October 30, 2025)
The ‘Adventure Song’ clip (November 5, 2025)
The ‘Victory Song’ clip (November 7, 2025)
The ‘Shalom’ clip (November 13, 2025)
The first full trailer (November 19, 2025)
The final trailer and the 30-second spot (December 12, 2025)
The ‘David’s Bold Challenge to Fight Goliath’ clip (December 18, 2025)
Plus see my posts on the Young David series—episodes one, two, three, four, five—as well as my interview with Phil Wickham, who voices the adult David in the movie.
Upcoming Bible movies and TV shows:
early 2026 — David: King of Israel (streaming: Fox Nation)
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)
sometime in 2026 — Zero A.D. (theatrical: Angel Studios)
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)
sometime in 2027 — Joseph of Egypt (streaming: Prime Video)
March 31, 2028 — The Chosen: Season 7: Premiere (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
no release date specified — Jacob (theatrical: Angel Studios)
no release date specified — The Promised Land: Season 2 (streaming)
who knows when Malick will finish it — The Way of the Wind (theatrical)