The TV Show That's Taking Over the World: The Chosen

On this episode of Our American Stories, Hollywood giants are ramping up new "faith limbs" - and this tectonic shift has begun with an amazing success story of crowdfunding and a creative culture grounded in the Bible.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
And we're back with our American stories. The Chosen is
an historical television series completely adapted from the Bible, staying
true to the details of the text in the New Testament.
The show follows the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ.
Dallas Jenkins, creator, director, and co writer of The Chosen,
came up with the concept of the series once he

(00:33):
realized there had never been a multi season show based
on the life of Jesus. Today, The Chosen has over
one hundred and ten million unique viewers and is a
truly global phenomenon. Joining us with a little more on
the show and faith content in Hollywood is The Chosen's
Vice president of Original Content, Katherine Warnock.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Faith content, for the longest time was just a knee
It was a subset, if you will, of content and creation.
It was never a core, fundamental tent pole within the
Hollywood system. And now it's becoming truly viable within the system.
The funny thing is, I'm a high school teacher who
God interrupted my life and said, no, I want you

(01:19):
to go work in Hollywood, and I had to remind
him I've had no training, i don't know anything about Hollywood,
and he just promised that the multiplication of the talents
are real if we're just faithful, and boy has he
kept his word. And so for the last twenty years,
I have climbed through kind of the back alleys and
the back doors of Hollywood to what many might say

(01:41):
is the top. I'm helping to collaboratively steer one of
the biggest brands in the world. My passion has been
the evolution of faith content. At MGM, I worked under
Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, who I look to as
kind of of my generation, the mother and father of

(02:01):
faith content. Not only has Mark had huge success with
The Survivor, The Voice Handsmade Tale like he is one
of the greatest producers of our time, but he also
loves Jesus, and he and his wife Roma Downey, who
she was the lead actress of Touch by an Angel.
I had the privilege of working under them and seeing
their fight to really make and carve out a place

(02:21):
for faith content within the traditional Hollywood system. So I
feel so much of the Chosen has been able to
kind of climb on their shoulders, climb on the shoulders
of the Irwin Brothers and so many others that have
fought hard to really make a place for faith content
in Hollywood. The Chosen started as a just side project

(02:43):
that Dallas Jenkins, the creator of The Chosen, did with
one of our writers, Tyler Thompson, for his church in Illinois.
It was a Chris's special and it was called The Shepherd,
and The Shepherd went organically viral on its own and
it became the basis and the pilot up for The Chosen.
I actually had a faith and family content at MGM

(03:04):
Film Studios at the time, and I watched it and
I immediately was so blown away. I had never seen
anything like it. I watched the entire episode, which is
unheard of in Hollywood and Hollywood we normally will watch
something for five seconds and then we'll x out. I
watched the entire episode. I immediately emailed Mark Burnett and
Romadowne at MGM and I said, you have to acquire this.

(03:26):
It will take over the world. And what started is
just a side church project in a rock querry in
Illinois has turned into a global phenomenon television series. We
started as a crowdfunded project, completely crowdfunded by about nineteen
thousand investors, and that got us through season one and

(03:48):
from there we became a pay it forward model, completely
funded and fans supported. Individuals literally paid it forward so
that the TV show can remain free for people all
around the world, and that is what single handedly funded
The Chosen. We're still completely fan supported in how we
are produced. We have seen this show make it into

(04:09):
every country in the world. We have over six hundred
million views. We are on pace to have six hundred
translations of the series to go around the world. To
put that in perspective, the previous record holder was Baywatch,
and I think about thirty six translations. It's extraordinary seeing
what's happening with The Chosen. It's redefining so many elements

(04:32):
of how productions are made in Hollywood. What has made
The Chosen so great and so universally accepted and watched
globally so quickly, it's because of the community element. So
to be a part of the evolution happening in Hollywood
is extraordinary. To be part of the evolution of faith
content around the world truly has been a life goal

(04:55):
and to see that continue to evolve and come to
fruition is an honor and a privilege. I always say
that we love The Chosen because of Dallas and the
writers and the cast of the production value. We love
the content, but we've only heard of the content because
of Daryl Eves. He's the co founder of The Chosen.
I call him the godfather of YouTube. He helped to

(05:16):
create the likes of Mister Beast and many other viral
YouTube content creators. And his passion and his genius is
building community around brands around content. He's brilliant and so
he put at the core foundations of The Chosen the
community element and the community piece, and we have fought
tooth and nail to keep it front and center of

(05:38):
The Chosen. That is why The Chosen was able to
go global as quickly as it went without the traditional
Hollywood support, was because of this community element. And it's
hugely encouraging to see Hollywood now asking how do we
do this, how do we build communities around our content?
Because they see that it's been a viable model, major

(05:58):
studios are now evolving and revving up faith limbs because
they understand this is far more than just a niche market.
This is an overwhelmingly global market who are showing up
to the box office and are showing up to s
fods to watch content that speaks to their worldview, their
value systems. We have a profoundly rich culture internally that

(06:20):
deeply seeks after God and is very transparent with one another.
Not only do we collaboratively operate and collaboratively seek what
is the right move, but we hold each other accountable
to the authenticity of our brand. And that's what I
admire so profoundly about Dallas is he is unwavering and
holding to the fact that our only job is to

(06:41):
bring our loafs and our fish, and it's God's job
to do the rest. He's unwavering in that belief system.
It is weaved into every single decision. We may get
the chosen, So that's how we get through the herd.
The good are the amazing testimonies that come in every
single day. We get to see the impact of our blood,
sweat and tears played out on a global scale, but

(07:03):
more than that, in individual lives. We see suicides averted
on the daily because of this show. We see transformations.
We see people be able to get off drugs or alcohol.
We see people finding the Lord on their deathbed because
of the show. The gamut is run with the amount
of amazing testimonies we get to see, and that is
just such a kindness of the Lords that in the

(07:25):
struggle we see the fruit. We're able to keep a
lens on eternity instead of the troubles of the here
now or even the successes of the hero now. It
truly is about the eternal focus. What I love most
about The Chosen is that you have every sect of
society gathering around a TV show. You have Hindus, you
have Buddhists, you have Muslims, you have Jews, you have Charismatics,

(07:48):
you have Evangelicals, Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Atheists, Agnostics, even Satanists
watching the show, loving the show and their lives being
transformed by the show, any of them meeting Jesus coming
to Jesus because of the show. There was a ninety
three year old man bedridden, sent home on hospice to die,

(08:10):
and his daughter was taking care of him. He was bitter,
he was angry, he didn't know Jesus. And she took
a captive audience to a whole other level when she
put The Chosen on a TV show in front of
her bedridden father, and she went into the other room
and was doing work, when shortly after she hears weeping
in the other room. So she goes into the other

(08:31):
room as she sees her ninety three year old, bedridden
father standing in front of the television, touching the television,
his face pressed to the television, weeping. It's the scene
of Nicodemus and Jesus chatting on the rooftop, and Jesus
is telling Nicodemus, you need to be born again. He
hears her come in, and he looks to her and
he says, how do I get this? How do I
get this? Right? Then and there she leads him to Jesus.

(08:54):
Two weeks to the day of that happening, he passes away,
But she said, instead of darkness and heaviness and depression
and death reigning over my father's life, those last two weeks,
he knew a joy and he knew a peace. She says,
we laughed and we had so much fun. There was
such life flowing throughout my house that when my father
had a profound last two weeks of his life, and

(09:17):
she said, instead of mourning upon his death, we as
a family were able to rejoice because we knew he
was home with Jesus, and that just left me in tears.
That's the life I get to live. That's what I
get to do for a living. So thank you Jesus
and may it continue.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
And a terrific job on the editing, production and storytelling
by our own Madison Dericot, and a special thanks to
Catherine Warnock. And what a story about how the Chosen
got made, how it got distributed, the lives impacted, and
that last story being witnessed by a TV sery and
coming to the Lord, the story of the story behind
the Chosen here on our American Stories