How faith-based content is driving innovation in funding, distribution and fan engagement

This week, I’m dusting off my largely forgotten Theology degree to explore whether faith-based content has risen again and to consider what we can learn from its radical approaches to creating and releasing content.

The US Box Office Top 10 currently features three faith-based titles: the animated King of Kings from Angel Studios (which just achieved the highest-grossing debut for a faith-based animated film, beating previous record holder The Prince of Egypt) and two theatrical releases of batched episodes from The Chosen's fifth season (The Last Supper).

Faith-based movies and TV shows are nothing new. From Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments in 1956 and Pasolini's sublime The Gospel According to Matthew in 1964 through to Mel Gibson's $622m-grossing The Passion of the Christ in 2004, film-makers have often looked to the Bible as the ultimate IP: it has a large installed fanbase, a bestselling book (6 billion copies sold!), and best of all, no copyright.

Recent press coverage suggests a resurgence in this genre. In truth, it has never really gone away. Studios like Sony had a great run in the 2010s, releasing reasonably-budgeted faith-based and faith-adjacent movies.

These are not blockbuster numbers (apart from Paramount's Noah). However, the budgets were so modest that their profitability profile was favourable.

In the 2020s, the number of releases and the ‘long tail’ has increased, and new players have emerged with innovative approaches.

Crowdfunding

The poster child for this genre is The Chosen, created by Dallas Jenkins.

Jenkins and his co-writers have turned the story of Jesus into prestige TV across multiple seasons, citing The Wire, The West Wing, Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek as key influences.

"I love binge-watching original series, so why not one about Jesus and his followers?” - Dallas Jenkins, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter

Launched in 2019 in partnership with Angel Studios, The Chosen raised $9 million from 16,000 people with a unique crowdfunding model that gave investors equity in the production. The total budget for Season 1 was $11 million. The way the investment waterfall was structured, managers of The Chosen Productions would not receive any of the profits until investors had recouped and made a 20% return on their investment.

The Chosen took off during the pandemic. It is now in its fifth season and has been watched by 280 million people worldwide (source: The Economist).

Angel Studios has also applied the crowdfunding model to feature films, using its broad base of investors to pre-test its decisions.

• When Angel Studios decided to pick up the feature film Sound of Freedom (which had already been financed and produced) for distribution, it did so by testing it with the Angel Guild - a group of previous investors in Angel Studios' projects. The Angel Guild has now reached 1 million members - that is quite a focus group.

• The release of Sound of Freedom was to cost $5m in Prints & Advertising (P&A). Angel Studios raised this through crowdfunding in two weeks, with 7,000 people investing between $10 and $25,000 each. These investors took first position in the waterfall - i.e. they were first to be reimbursed from box-office revenues - after which Angel Studios took one-third of revenues, with the remaining two-thirds going to the film’s producers (who then had to repay the original investors who funded the $14.5 million production).

• Sound of Freedom, which was made for $15m, went on to gross $250m worldwide, making it the tenth biggest film of 2023.

An implicit Christian missionary angle boosts the crowdfunding message: by investing, you are helping to spread the gospel.

Aside from providing a new source of capital, crowdfunding also helps with marketing by pre-seeding a fanbase that can help amplify the release. These fan-investors have tracked the production, posted on social media, helped with community outreach, and sometimes appeared as extras. By the time the show is released, the target market has high awareness.

Notably, other genres are also starting to adopt a similar crowdfunding approach: the horror director Eli Roth is currently crowdfunding for his new label, The Horror Section.

Paying it forward

Many of these crowdfunding models include a Pay It Forward appeal to help spread the Word.

• During the end credits for Sound of Freedom, a message from Jim Caviezel asked viewers to scan a QR code on the screen and "pay it forward", contributing extra money to provide free tickets for others and thereby raise awareness of the film’s message.

• The Chosen app has a Pay it Forward button, encouraging viewers to donate to keep it free for others—contributions average $65 each (Source: Wall Street Journal).

• Dallas Jenkins also hosts livestream events as viewing parties for new episodes, which generate an average of $1 million each

• Side note: In 2022, The Chosen ended part of its Angel Studios relationship and replaced Pay It Forward with a nonprofit ministry called Come & See. In 2024, Dallas Jenkins launched 5&2 Studios to produce future episodes of The Chosen.

Eventising releases

The Chosen successfully eventises its new seasons by releasing batched episodes theatrically. To date, these have taken $90m at the Box Office.

Innovative theatrical pricing

• For the theatrical release of The Chosen’s Season 5 episodes, cinemas offered bundled ticket pricing for those who wish to attend all three releases.

• Angel Studios launched a kids-go-free campaign for its animated The King of Kings with the purchase of one adult ticket.

Free distribution

Although The Chosen has monetised its TV distribution with licenses for broadcast and streaming, the mission-based approach has led it to do something quite counter-intuitive for prestige TV: every episode is also made available for free through its own The Chosen app, available for phones, tablets and connected TV devices such as Roku.

Sharing transparently with fans

Dallas Jenkins regularly shares behind-the-scenes updates and in-depth briefings with the fans, maintaining fan communications between releases and building anticipation for what’s coming next. He also leans into some of the theological issues and controversies that his show creates.

Bringing the fans together IRL

An annual fan convention, ChosenCon has run for two years.

Expanding the franchise

The Chosen franchise is expanding with several spin-offs:

• The Chosen in the Wild with Bear Grylls - a 6-episode unscripted show in which Bear Grylls takes the cast of The Chosen into the wilderness

• The Chosen Adventures – an animation series for kids

• A future spin-off based on The Acts of The Apostles

There is also a robust offering of consumer products. My favourite is the “Binge Jesus” range.

Broadening the market

The market has broadened to faith-adjacent, both in terms of the audience and the content.

• Of The Chosen’s 280 million viewers, internal surveys have found that only half are practising Christians (source: The Hollywood Reporter).

• Sound of Freedom is not explicitly Christian – it is a 'Christian thriller' in which Jim Caviezel hunts for missing children. However, it does squarely target the same audience, and the casting of Caviezel (who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ) is no coincidence.

New faith-based studio The Wonder Project also positions its focus as broader than purely Christian. Founder John Erwin explained to the Wall Street Journal:

“There is a longing for content that, as I like to say, restores faith in things worth believing in. Things you can watch with your kids or your parents.”

Wall Street Journal: ‘The Wonder Project wants to be the HBO or A24 of clean content, says chief executive Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten ... “God, country, family, community, entrepreneurship,” [she says], ticking off the themes of projects in the pipeline.’

Even The Wonder Project’s more explicitly religious series, such as House Of David, lean into those fantastical themes and elements that resonate in more secular properties:

“You have giants and you have the spirit of God, which very much takes the place of the force in Star Wars or the magic in Harry Potter. I think you have all the drama that you would want inside a world that is very fantastic.” - David Erwin, The Wonder Project

House of David premiered with 22 million viewers in its first 17 days of streaming and has been renewed for a second season at Amazon Prime Video.

Enter the streamers

The success of faith-based content has not gone unnoticed by the streamers, who have data points from their services to back it up. Amazon Prime Video, for example, saw success with 2023's On A Wing And A Prayer, starring Dennis Quaid as a Christian family man who must land a plane after the pilot has a heart attack.

Last month, Amazon signed a wide-ranging deal for The Chosen and 5&2 Studios’ associated projects. Season 5 will stream exclusively on Amazon for 90 days (after which it will also be available on The Chosen app for free). The show will no longer be found on Netflix, Hulu and Peacock. Seasons 6 and 7 will also follow this model. Amazon has a first look at all related Chosen projects, and Amazon MGM Studios will take over distribution for theatrical releases of future The Chosen episodes.

Amazon: “As we look ahead, we see massive opportunities to develop additional faith-inspired content for our global Prime Video customers.”

Amazon seems a natural home for the Chosen. As The Hollywood Reporter reported last year:

One of his proudest moments, Jenkins likes to say, was when he turned on Prime Video and saw The Chosen on the streamer’s most popular list along with Cocaine Bear. If that’s not getting Christ into the cultural mainstream, what is?”

Netflix is also ramping up. Last year, it launched the docudrama Testament: The Story of Moses (which was pretty good, in my opinion), followed by Mary (which, unfortunately, was terrible). Netflix also has a deal with Tyler Perry and DeVon Franklin to produce faith-based films - the first of these will be the Bible-inspired love story R&B, a modern-day retelling of Ruth and Boaz.

There are also niche streaming services that are entirely faith-focused:

• Angel Studios has its own streaming service, to which its Angel Guild members have complimentary access.

• Pure Flix (which produced God’s Not Dead in 2014, generating $64 million on a $1.5 million budget) has operated a streaming service for several years. It was aquired by Sony Pictures television in 2020, and in 2023 it merged with Great American Media, becoming Great American Pure Flix, at which time it was reported as having 1 million subscribers.

Not everything is a smash hit

The analyst known as

Entertainment Strategy Guy

poured cold water on the faith-based hype machine at the end of 2024, correctly pointing out that Angel Studios' escalating budgets were jeopardising its business model:

Religious movies are poised to “take over” every 10 years or so, but they never do. This genre is much more competitive and harder to market than many people think … If you’re going to go after a niche, then you need to make projects at that niche’s budget. If made for the right price (less than $10 million), then producers should invest in faith-based films. Angel Studios is no longer making (or acquiring the rights to) films in that $2 million to $10 million range. Once faith-based films cost $20 million — or in the case of Cabrini, $50 million — it’s much, much harder to make them profitable.

Since this was written, though, Angel Studios have launched the $8 million budgeted Homestead to $21 million at the Box Office, and this past weekend launched the animated King of Kings (budget not reported) to a $19 million opening weekend. As with all genres, there will always be hits and misses, and budgets do indeed need to be controlled to mitigate the downside.

Looking ahead

There is no sign of the faith-based pipeline slowing down. Here is a selection of forthcoming projects:

• From Angel Studios in 2025:

  • The Last Rodeo - Neal McDonough stars as a retired bull rider who risks his life to get back in the game and win the money he needs for a life-saving brain surgery for his grandson.

  • Sketch – a family-friendly dark fantasy starring Tony Hale

  • Truth & Reason – the true story of Helmuth Hübener, a German teenager who became the youngest person executed by the nazis for his resistance efforts

  • Zero A.D. – a ‘Nativity epic’ from the director of Sound of Freedom, starring Sam Worthington, Ben Mendelsohn and Jim Caviezel

• The Wonder Project also has several feature films planned for release:

  • It’s Not Like That is set up at Amazon MGM and Prime Video

  • The Breadwinner, starring comedian Nate Bargatze, is with Sony’s TriStar Pictures

  • Sarah’s Oil will be released on Christmas Day 2025 via Amazon

• The Light Of The World is an animation created by the new non-profit studio, The Salvation Poem Project. It follows Jesus' life as seen through the eyes of Apostle John and will be released in September 2025.

• Of course, there are the final two seasons of The Chosen to look forward to, covering the crucifixion and the resurrection. The Chosen’s entire sixth season will cover just one day, with the crucifixion itself taking hours of screen time!

• And if that’s not enough, Mel Gibson’s sequel to The Passion of the Christ, called (you’ll never guess … ) The Resurrection of the Christ, starts shooting this Summer.

Key takeaways: how faith-based content is driving innovation

• Equity crowdfunding and pay-it-forward models

• Embracing the fan community with conventions, constant communication, and consumer products

• Eventising new releases

• Increasing reach with free distribution

• Expanding franchises with spin-offs

• Broadening the appeal with faith-adjacent content

• Cashing in with major long-term streamer deals to secure future funding

• Strengthening the pipeline with future projects

What to watch

Finally, if you’re looking for an underrated gem to watch this Easter, I recommend ignoring all the above and tracking down 1989’s incredible Jesus of Montreal.

To those who celebrate: Happy Easter.

PS. If you enjoyed this post, please share it with your network using the button below!

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Follow-ups & other franchise news

• For those who read my post about Superfans (When Superserving becomes Supersqueezing), Warner Music Group’s Superfan app is now being tested by a select group of users, with Ed Sheeran actively posting as its first featured artist. The full story is here.

• For those who read my post 9 brand-extension lessons from Monopoly, the Monopoly new reality compeition series has landed at Netflix.

• Netflix is launching a new Peppa Pig app, as part of an increased focus on games for young viewers and in conjunction with the launch of new Peppa episodes in the US

• Not since Mr Big took his final Peloton ride has a brand collab been so upended by a plot point: Nestle’s collab with The White Lotus on a Piña Colada flavour Coffee Mate turned out to be perilously pertinent to a (potentially) murderous plot point. For those who don’t mind Season 3 spoilers the full story is here. Still, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, and a responsive social media team were quick to respond:

• Soap and cosmetics retailer Lush have launched some wonderful brand collabs lately. Below are examples from their Saniro (Hello Kitty) and Aardman deals.

• Starbucks and Peanuts have launched a global brand partnership that celebrates kindness, coffee, and community

  

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