Angel Studios has released a new trailer for Zero A.D., the new movie about the birth of Jesus from the director of Sound of Freedom.
This is the first trailer for the film that the studio has released in over a year. Back then, the movie was going to come out just before Christmas 2025. But then it got bumped to make room for the animated musical David—and that film turned out to be Angel Studios’ biggest hit since, well, Sound of Freedom.
Now we’re just three months away from the next Christmas, and it’s time to roll out the Zero A.D. marketing campaign again. So today we got a new trailer—and with it, a new title for the movie. It is now called Zero A.D.: The Birth of Christ.1
Hmmm… Are they trying to capitalize on the fact that Mel Gibson’s got two movies called The Resurrection of the Christ coming out in the near future?2
In any case, here’s the new trailer:
I’m a little too busy to do any sort of trailer analysis right now, but two points do occur to me:
This trailer feels quite different from the earlier ones. The original teaser and the original trailer were moody and evocative, full of impressive visuals, but this one really leans into the plot, the action, the dialogue, and the like.
Herod says he’s planning to kill “the firstborn sons of Bethlehem”. Hmmm. Just the firstborn sons? Not every male child under the age of two? Sounds like the slaughter of the innocents won’t be quite as big an atrocity this time. And how are the soldiers who enforce the edict supposed to know which infants and toddlers are firstborn and which are not? How are they supposed to know which children are siblings and which are cousins, for example? Seems to me that if Herod is going to be so paranoid as to kill infants and toddlers, he wouldn’t give his troops a loophole for letting some infants and toddlers off the hook.3
Anyhoo. The film comes to theatres December 11. More later, perhaps.
Previous videos for Zero A.D.: The Birth of Christ:
The teaser (April 10, 2025)
The first trailer (August 1, 2025)
Upcoming Bible movies and TV shows
September 10-17, 2026 — The Passion of the Christ re-release with The Resurrection of the Christ sneak peak (theatrical: Fathom)
September 18, 2026 — Daniel and the Fiery Furnace (theatrical: EKKL)
October 2, 2026 — The Flood: End of Mankind (theatrical)
October 30, 2026 — Sight & Sound Presents: Joshua Live! (theatrical: Roadside)
November 13, 2026 — God with Us (theatrical)
November 15-December 6, 2026 — The Chosen: Season 6: Episodes 1-6 (streaming: Prime Video)
December 11, 2026 — Zero A.D.: The Birth of Christ (theatrical: Angel Studios)
Fall 2026 — The Promised Land: Season 2 (streaming)
March 12, 2027 — The Chosen: Crucifixion (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
Easter 2027 — Paradise Lost (theatrical: Ex Machina Studios)
May 6, 2027 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part One (theatrical: Lionsgate)
first half of 2027 — Joseph of Egypt (streaming: Prime Video)
sometime in 2027 — Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints: Season 2 part 2 (streaming: Fox Nation)
March 31, 2028 — The Chosen: Season 7: Premiere (theatrical: Amazon MGM)
May 25, 2028 — The Resurrection of the Christ: Part Two (theatrical: Lionsgate)
no release date specified — The First Exorcist (theatrical: Helium Pictures)
no release date specified — House of David: Season 3 (streaming: Wonder Project)
no release date specified — Jacob (theatrical: Angel Studios)
no release date specified — Job (theatrical)
who knows when Malick will finish it — The Way of the Wind (theatrical)
The new title actually appears on a poster that I posted here back in July, but at the time I assumed “The Birth of Christ” was a tagline, not an extension of the movie’s title.
Personally, if I was changing the movie’s title, I’d just drop the whole “Zero A.D.” thing, because there’s no such thing as “year zero”. The calendar goes straight from 1 BC to AD 1. There has never been a year that was neither before Christ nor of Christ.
To put this another way, all of human history can be divided into “Jesus didn’t exist in human form yet” and “Jesus existed in human form”. There has never been a year in which Jesus-the-human neither existed nor didn’t-exist. That is a logical impossibility.
Plus, Europeans weren’t really using the number zero yet when Dionysius Exiguus invented the BC/AD system in the 6th century AD.
I am reminded of how Mary and Joseph brought Joseph’s adopted son James with them to Bethlehem in 2016’s The Young Messiah. In a situation like that, would Herod’s soldiers assume that James was Mary’s son, and therefore Jesus was not a firstborn son?