The director of The Chosen, Dallas Jenkins, is in studio with The Babylon Bee to talk about Christians in the arts, the state of Christian entertainment, and the challenge of depicting Jesus without a British accent. Angel Studios, which produces The Chosen, is a crowdfunded movie studio that let's investors directly choose which programs they want the studio to pursue. Be sure to check out The Chosen App to watch the show The Chosen. Also available on VidAngel, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and more!
Welcome everyone to the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
Today we are talking to Dallas Jenkins.
That's right.
You may know him as the creator of The Chosen.
Of the Jenkins Jenkinses.
Of the Jenkins, the Jenkins dynasty.
The Jenkins.
Yeah.
The Jenkins.
And me and Jared are going to be talking to Dallas Jenkins.
He was kind enough to come all the way out here to our studio, and it was just a fantastic conversation.
Talked about creativity and Christianity, Christian movies, which ones are good, which ones are good.
The songs are not so good.
The making of The Chosen.
What season did you see?
The Accents.
What season did you say they're working on now?
They're working on working on season three right now.
Yeah, and so it's really cool.
We also tried to get Jarrett a job.
That's right.
So season four, I'm still holding out for Pontius Pilot.
Okay.
So you'll get to see us pitch Jarrett's acting ability in real time to Dallas Jenkins.
That's wonderful.
No, but it was a great conversation.
We roamed all over the place in terms of topics, and it was wonderful.
It was great.
He's a great guy.
If you like The Chosen, if you like any of the old left behind stuff, you get some inside scoop with what went on with.
We do talk about Nick Cage too.
And lots of Nicholas Cage discussion.
Lots of Nicholas Cai.
Here we go.
Let's talk to Dallas Jenkins.
So are you named after the city in Texas or the American primetime television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1978 to May 3, 1991?
You guys are so young.
So I was born before the show.
So I was first.
But I was actually named after the city because my dad in 1972 rededicated his life to Christ, which is the term we use in evangelicalism for kind of that rebirth at Explo72, which is a really famous event that they had at the Cotton Bowl back when the Jesus movement was happening.
And so when I was born in 1975, I'm 46 now.
Should we get you a cane to like wave while you tell these old stories?
Back in 75.
I was there for the season premiere of Dallas.
We caught the 70s.
How were they?
Yeah, I was for four years, the first four years of my life, I experienced the 70s.
It was wild.
It was a wild.
Wild time.
It was a wild time.
The 70s were crazy.
And then Reagan got assassinated and our innocence was lost.
And at five years old, I knew.
You knew I was going to be a director.
You guys are prepared.
Does your dad ever do anything of note?
No.
He's just sitting back watching me succeed.
Yeah.
He's living vicariously.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, it took you guys a while to make fun of The Chosen.
But you were making fun of Left Behind pretty early on.
Yeah, very early on.
And my dad wrote Left Behind back in 92 or 93, somewhere around there.
I was in college when that started to explode.
And then I graduated from college and went to work as a secretary for the company that was going to make the Left Behind movie.
And right as they were about to make the movie, I'd been working there for about three years.
My dad and I felt like it wasn't going to go in the direction we had hoped.
And so we started our own thing.
And so I actually worked for them for three years and then didn't get to be part of the making of the movie.
So that was the, I'm sorry, that was the Left Behind movie that actually ended up getting made.
The first one.
The Kirk Cameron one.
The Kirk Cameron one.
Okay.
I worked for the company in Ottawa, Kentucky.
They got the rights to the books and were developing them.
And then right as they were getting ready to make the movie, I left and my dad and I started our own thing.
The Kirk Cameron movies got made.
And then the Nick Cage one a few years ago.
And now the Kevin Sorbo one is creating a new one.
Oh, is that coming out, too?
It's being made right now.
Have you ever thought about remaking The Thief in the Night?
I think Left Behind is a remake of The Thief in the Night.
But no, I actually, it is very much on my radar to potentially do a Left Behind show because I do want my dad to experience a good Left Behind before he dies.
Yeah, I think the first B article we did about it was thrift stores and landfills will no longer accept rapture fiction.
And your dad commented on it or shared it or something.
And that was the most surreal moment for me early on.
Like, wow, these books that I grew up with and this guy's talking about it.
Yeah, I know.
He loved that kind of stuff.
And you guys did one about Trump building his wall with leftover left behind books, which was a little bit more of a dig.
But 70 million copies sold, I think he did.
Yeah, there's a lot out there.
I mean, I think I got all my copies at a thrift store.
Yeah.
There was a whole section.
We pre-ordered all of them and waited and we got them on release day.
So we got you beat there.
We have a cabin close to where Tim LaHaye used to have his cabin.
Yeah?
Oh, that's interesting, yeah.
For real?
Yeah, for real.
Yeah, so anyway.
Did your dad ever play rapture pranks on you growing up?
Or do you have a good story where it was considered a when you mean when you went to evangelical college in the 90s and the left behind books started to really take off, there was kind of this common joke about like we should have someone walk into the cafeteria and there's only clothes in the cafeteria.
And there was a Christian comedian who did a like a punked, do you remember the show Punked on MTV?
I do.
A punked style prank on this girl where they did something like that, where she walked into the cafeteria and like there were a bunch of clothes there.
And at first she was just confused and she started to take it seriously.
And it was like, so I know you were joking, but it's not that like people did that.
Then she had a heart attack and died.
It's a terrible story.
That's a problem.
I went to Africa because she believed that she went to have it.
So Emma's brother-in-law has commented on The Chosen.
And he says, I cry every episode.
The way you portray Jesus makes me feel like he truly would be my best friend.
And he would also rebuke all my bad habits.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
See, here's the thing.
That's actually a sweet comment.
You've got this Bible on B smirk on that makes me go, what's the joke?
It's a weird thing to say, like, see this girl over here.
Her brother-in-law said this.
Yeah.
Yes.
That's the joke.
So, like, how snarky do I get towards one of the fans of the show?
You're so serious.
Saying something so beautiful.
We can say the funny things.
Yeah, that's fine.
No, I think that's a lovely comment.
But what was the last sentence about rebuking?
You said that Jesus would be my best friend and also rebuke all of my bad habits.
Yes.
That part I'm not so sure of.
You don't think Jesus would rebuke all somebody's bad habits?
Not immediately.
Maybe eventually.
Yeah, like maybe eventually.
Before the judge didn't see them.
So they all have this accent.
Is that an accent that you guys made up?
Is it an accent that you found in the Holy Land?
Is there a particular place that you guys are getting that from?
Yeah, that was a good question.
There's a Middle Eastern accent kind of with the rolled R and the hard vowel sounds and whatnot.
But there's so many different ones that our approach to it was we do want an accent because we do want it to feel a little bit authentic, even though obviously they're speaking English, which isn't authentic.
But we didn't want to go full Passion of the Christ where they're speaking Aramaic.
But we didn't want to go pure American accent.
We also didn't want to go the typical British thing.
But what I say to the actors who come on board is find whatever Middle Eastern accent you want.
Just keep it consistent.
And so you hear different.
you hear different accents on the show, but they're all, we try to keep them consistent within each character.
I noticed the Romans are often either American accents or they like just typical American accents or they're British.
So there's one guy who had a Britishy accent, I think, but otherwise it's what we call transatlantic, which is actually a very, it's just formal.
And you can listen to tapes of like FDR where he spoke and it's how they used to speak in high society.
Hollywood too.
It's like mid-Atlantic, transatlantic, right?
On the turn of the century, if you hear, you'll hear tapes of everything is very formal and everything is rounded and it's just the proper way.
And so I really did want to differentiate between the Jews and the Romans and everything Roman from their dress to how they walk to how they talk is very formal.
And so that's what we try to showcase the differences in that region.
But the region was actually a melting pot.
Capernaum was a trade route, so you got a lot of different accents and colors.
So you'll see different shades of olive or brown or black in the skin of the actors.
We do have a question about diversity among the disciples.
Did you want to ask that question?
Yeah, they're all Jewish males.
There's a problem with that.
I mean, there's not a lot of diversity.
We could add some diversity in future seasons.
Disciples.
Yeah, there's for sure Jewish privilege emotionally.
There's so much Jewish privilege on that show.
Yeah, they are Jewish males.
But we have added, you know, there's women among the followers, three of them now.
By the end of the season.
So I can read what Peter is now gender swapped and it's not swapped.
It's now they.
It's just they.
He's identifying.
That's the new season.
But seriously, look at, you watch old depictions of Jesus.
You watch old Jesus shows and it's all British white guys.
Yeah.
The blonde, wavy hair.
And you kind of push back against that, which I thought was pretty cool.
Yeah, and it's really not, we get asked about that often, and it's not because of any statement we're trying to make.
It's just we're trying to be authentic.
It's literally like the reason you do it.
And I think that something that you could smell when you watch Jesus projects.
I mean, I grew up on them.
I'm sure you have too.
And they all, I shouldn't say all.
A lot of them felt the same.
They just, Jesus looked like he had come out of the stained glass window of the local Catholic church or the statue.
And so we were just saying we just have to have it feel as authentic as possible.
And I think another thing is when the Passion of the Christ came out and was not only not white British Jesus, but was like ethnic looking and then they spoke Aramaic.
I mean, they didn't even speak a language you could even understand.
And it still was hugely impactful.
And I think because of how real it felt and how connective it felt, I think that, excuse me, in many ways kind of opened the door for us to not feel like, well, you know, real quick, if you remember the movie Exodus came out and they cast Christian Bale and Russell Crowe.
Yeah.
No, he was a Noah.
Oh, he was the Noah guy.
There was the other guy that I'm blanking on, his name.
Joseph Feins.
No, but it was, but he's really good.
I'm saying.
Nicholas Cage.
Nicholas Cage.
Just keep going.
Just keep going.
This will be really interesting for you.
Chris Willis.
It wasn't any of those folks.
Will Smith Chris.
I was just about to say, I'm like, you're going to now go to any current hot button office.
I'm sorry, we'll let you know.
No, it was the guy who played Ramses in Exodus.
Ray Fines.
No, it's a.
i'm ready to move on um but uh it's joel so Yes, Joel Edgerton.
Oh, got you.
But they said they cast him, they cast those guys because you're like, you know, internationally, you know, especially here in the States, you're just not going to get the audience if you don't do stars.
And typically that tends to be true, but I think for us, it worked to our advantage, kind of the authenticity brand that we were really leaning into.
I think it worked to our advantage to not have stars, to not have white people, to just go straight for who's the best for the role.
And how do you find actors?
Are people hesitant to be part of this kind of religious-themed project?
Where do you find actors?
Did you know that Jared is an actor?
I am.
Not on the chosen.
I don't see that happening to your little white.
Well, there are Roman parts.
Are you actually an actor?
I am.
Yeah, he actually.
I'm not trying to be awkward here.
I'm just mentioning it on the side.
I am in town because that's really awkward.
The main reason I'm in town is casting, actually, right now.
So we're casting tomorrow.
You get to find talent out here typically.
You want to find, it's good to find locals too, just because of travel and all that kind of stuff.
So when we film in Dallas, we have some local talent.
But yeah, majority of them come from LA.
And no, there's never been an issue with the content.
In fact, I would say the majority of our cast and crew aren't believers.
But they just, they really like the script.
You know, I think a lot of people say this about the show.
It doesn't feel like a Christian show, even though it's literally about Christ.
But it's a portrayal of first century Galilee and this man who changed the world.
And we're just trying to be authentic to it.
And I think a lot of people have been just like because they like the writing, because they like the character that they get to play.
It's just never been an issue.
Yeah.
Jesus is a believer.
Yeah, he's a practicing Catholic.
He's comparison to.
A lot of Catholic Jesuses are.
I guess Jim could easily.
That's true.
Yeah, that's true.
Catholic Jesus is true.
That's because they haven't heard of the Second Commandment.
Oh, that's right.
We're getting criticism.
Yeah, we get that.
From the big time reformers?
Yeah, no.
The reformed folks don't mind that.
Well, Dan's a reform guy.
He's kind of an iconoclast.
The Reformed guys have been pretty cool with the show.
There has been a few people who are super just like, you shouldn't even portray God on any level.
And because Jesus is God, you shouldn't portray Him.
But that's paled in comparison to some of the other criticisms we've gotten.
So that's been a minor one.
What is the biggest criticism?
I'm interested in you, Simon.
From the show, from the content of the show itself, obviously from people who haven't seen it, because they won't, is just the fact that we're showing things that weren't in scripture.
Agreed.
So taking creative license.
People who like the show.
We had a scene in season two where Jesus is off by himself and the disciples come up to talk to him and he's kind of going over some sermon thoughts in his head.
Like he's kind of working out how to phrase something and he's kind of struggling with it.
And it was like 10 seconds long and it was by far our number one.
Like people, there was a few people who were really upset because they would say Jesus would never struggle to find the words for anything.
He was God.
He knows everything.
He never prepared that.
That's a theological.
He would never have prepared it.
Yeah, never prepared a sermon.
He knew what to say at all times.
He never thought through it.
Yeah.
That's very interesting.
So it is interesting.
And I don't think the people who disagree with me on it are crazy.
I think what I don't like is their contention that they know they've solved that riddle.
Any YouTube comment, they can solve 2,000 years of debate about the whole God-man, you know, hypostatic union question.
Well, some people say that Dan thinks I'm a heretic, but I think that Jesus didn't know things at times.
Yeah.
You know, because if you read the scriptures as his narrative, there's times where he's asking questions or he doesn't know something and he has to find it out.
And it's weird to me that if Jesus is fully a man, he's a baby and he knows he's God.
How is that being a human baby?
I don't know.
Yeah, no.
Do I have to put money in here, Dan?
No, no, that's no, that's Philippians.
I was just about to say Philippians is what I is kind of where I go where he gave, he gave, he did not see equality with God as something to be grasped.
He put aside some of his gods.
Right, and it's the extent, and can he give up an attribute?
Is that his omniscience an attribute that he can give up or can he voluntarily set aside the exercise?
But the key question is: so you just brought it up.
He asked questions at times when he said, Where is Lazarus buried, by the way?
Or when the woman with the bleeding, the issue of blood, grabbed, and he said, Who touched me?
Who touched me?
I believe he was telling the truth.
I believe he didn't know.
He was looking around, who touched me, who touched.
And I think that if you are someone who believes Jesus knew everything at all times and knew everyone's thoughts, then you have, then at best, you thought you're thinking that Jesus was just pretending to not know certain things.
And I just, that's hard for me to grasp.
It doesn't set right.
Yeah.
So, but it's an interesting question.
And I love the conversation, but that's been the number one thing from the show that bothered people was that 10 seconds of sermon prep.
Now, The Chosen has been compared with shows like Game of Thrones, like in terms of buzz and format, and like just that this is like a well-produced, you know, kind of limited series every time it comes out each season.
Do you have any plans to just completely ruin it in season seven and eight?
Or have Jesus just like destroy everybody on a dragon or something?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
We've talked about how we have gotten to a place where we could troll people so, so bad because there's so many things that people now who've seen the first two seasons and really love it and even find a lot of spiritual nourishment from it.
Like for a lot of people around the world, they have said, this brought me back to the Bible.
This has brought me back to Christ.
And I don't typically think about that.
Like when I'm writing, I'm not thinking I'm responsible for the spiritual life of millions of people.
I don't think that.
But there is a weight to it to some extent.
You know, you don't really want to screw it up.
But when you think about the ways you could, it is kind of fun to think of like just like season six, he just, you know, on the cross, turns to the camera, and he's like, the Mormons were right.
Just something.
Because there I'm already, because I work with some LDS folks and they already hate me for it.
So I'm like, maybe I could just go all in and just totally like just ruin people.
You're not denying Jesus on a dragon season theory.
Jesus may be coming to America in season season.
So that's funny after the resurrection.
So that's funny because I was on the set.
You know, the set that we've used and will continue to use at times for the show is owned by the LDS Church.
And I was visiting there for the first time, checking it out, and there was this section that had all this kind of Native American design on it.
And I didn't know the history of this part of the church.
And I said, oh, what's this?
And they said, oh, this is where we filmed the Book of Mormon.
We're filming some of the Book of Mormon videos.
And this is, you know, and I go, oh, yeah, well, what's with the Native American stuff?
And they said, oh, this is when Jesus came to the Americas.
And I said, I'm sorry, what?
Yeah.
Wait a minute.
And so we had this, they were kind of educating me on it.
And I thought, okay, good to know.
Good to know.
All right, we're going to shoot over here.
No, but it was really cool.
And it was really fun.
It was really fun to learn.
But yeah, that was, I didn't actually, the whole Jesus coming to the Americas thing didn't enter.
Didn't register until about two years ago.
Yeah, so Angel Studios, I know some of the people you work with are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We should come up with a shorter word.
LDS.
To describe them.
There was one for a long time, and everyone was cool with it.
Mormon, but no longer.
I hate that we keep asking you about criticism because it's like, what's your greatest weakness?
But have you faced criticism for partnering with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?
How much do members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints influence theology?
Are you in complete creative control?
How many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have you converted?
You're reminding me of like when you're using your GPS or ways and it says in one mile take an exit and it's got like six different titles and then they repeat it every single time and it's so annoying.
That's what came to mind.
Fair enough.
I'm glad I'm being annoying.
Yeah, so let me start with, yes, we've gotten a lot of criticism for the fact that I work with members of the Church of Jesus Christ.
They have zero influence on the content.
And they say that themselves, the people that I work with.
No affiliation at all with the church formally.
We're not affiliated with any denomination, any faith tradition, any religion at all.
and nor is anyone affiliated with us and then your last one was i'll repeat it for you No, just the second part.
Please, Lord.
How many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have you converted?
That I will not answer.
But no, it has been actually a really wonderful experience actually getting to know so many people and to also talk about the differences of the different faith traditions, including the things on which we vociferously disagree, has been really fascinating.
And there has been among people of other religions, Catholicism, LDS, whatnot, who have been really intrigued by the chosen because if they didn't know any better, they wouldn't have thought I'm an evangelical.
Like, in fact, I've had talked to Catholics who assumed it was a Catholic show because the show reflected their faith so much.
Because when you think about the Gospels, there's not very much other than Mary that Catholics, evangelicals, and even LDS folks disagree on when it comes to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
You know, like the theology differences usually come based on things from way before then or way after then.
But like the stories of the Gospels, there's not much disagreement.
So an LDS person watches the show and goes, I love this show.
This is great.
This is exactly the Jesus that I love.
Same as the Catholics.
But what they're finding is, as an evangelical, I tend to be less quote unquote religious, obviously.
That's kind of our thing is no structure, kind of a very libertarian approach to church.
And we're finding that a lot of people who previously were more comfortable in a structured religious setting are finding themselves really finding the love of a personal relationship with Jesus.
That doesn't necessarily cause them to give up their religion, but just it becomes more personal than it had been.
That's interesting.
I've been working in this industry a bit, and I've been working a lot with Catholics lately.
And I'm finding that they are way more even free with their relationship with Jesus than some of the folks that I've known that are Protestants over my years.
And they seek the Lord about everything.
They ask the Lord's opinion about everything.
Or the saints.
They ask about the Lord's Saints.
No, these guys, man, you probably know them.
You probably know these guys, but they're really sweet guys, but they seek God on every issue.
And I'm just amazed by it.
Yeah, you sometimes go up as an evangelical, you don't expect that.
And you're told they only talk to priests.
They never talk to God.
And then you meet him and you go, oh, they talk to God all the time.
And they talk to priests.
We should get priests in our lives.
I feel like, I need a priest.
I have one.
Oh, he's a high priest.
He's a high priest in Jesus Christ.
Oh, that's right.
I'm going to introduce you.
So do you like movies?
Yeah.
Yeah, you like them.
This is the greatest.
Let me say, by the way, I didn't say, I haven't said this yet.
I love you guys.
I love Babylon B.
I love this podcast.
I haven't said it.
So I wanted to make, just, it made me think of it just now, and I want to make sure I say it.
But as someone who grew up in the church and as someone who always kind of had a snarky approach to things and loved satire and always kind of was bummed by some of the humorlessness of the Christian space, even the Christian media space, there used to be, I know you guys know this, there used to be the Wittenberg door that was also legitimately funny.
But then it hadn't been too popular for a while.
And when you guys came along, I'm telling you, it was such a breath of fresh air.
And I mean, once a week, my wife, who's here in the room, I'll text her a screenshot of one of your headlines.
And just truly, it is so fun when you find artists that you truly admire and look up to.
And you guys are fit the bill.
So just wanted to make sure I say that.
Yes, I like movies.
No, go on.
We like this.
This is really nice.
Yes.
But thank you for what you do.
And it's truly, truly brilliant.
It's awesome.
We're excited about you, too.
I love the shows, and I'm a huge fan.
I was going somewhere with my movies question.
Oh, yeah, we should do that.
So we're going to ask you to rate some Christian movies.
Very excited.
Now, if you're not comfortable, you know, if you're buddies with these guys and you don't want to slander their movie, that's fine, or you can just lie about them.
I do.
I mean, I'm friends with a lot of these guys, but we'll see what happens.
So we're going to rate them between one.
1 is Noah, and 10, which is Passion of the Christ.
So is that a scale?
That doesn't seem like it's a scale of quality because Noah was well produced.
We're talking sort of like Christian.
You just mean whether it was.
I don't know.
You can make up the scale.
No, one is Noah and 10 is Passion of the Christ.
You're like, no, you can't make up the scale.
That's what a scale is.
It's an intuitive thing.
So number one is Left Behind starring Nicholas Cage.
Oh, man.
Can you not say?
Are you nodding or shaking my head?
My wife is signaling to you.
I say, you can say.
I have not been a fan of the Left Behind movies that have been made.
None of the ones?
None of them.
Is there a best one or worst one?
I mean, I love Nicholas Cage.
So how awesome is that?
It was awesome.
And when my dad, when Left Behind First was written, and we were thinking, like, this is going to be a movie and thinking of the kinds of actors you could get, Nicholas Cage would have been in the top five, you know.
So I for sure liked Nicolas Cage and his performance was fine.
I remember Tribulation Force, which was the second one of the originals, I actually thought was better than the first one.
Like I thought it was like not too bad.
And I love Kirk Cameron.
I mean, we're buddies.
He's fantastic.
Great guy.
But yeah, I'm not a fan of the Left Behind movies.
Okay.
Cool.
All right.
Second.
One, Noah.
I'm not going to give it a one.
Noah's on the Noah.
Yeah.
So Last Temptation of Christ.
I guess I can't.
I don't think it really counts.
Yeah, that's a weird one.
I actually don't think it's that great of a movie.
So I thought it was setting the theology.
Which is really interesting.
Yeah, but I'll give it a three.
Okay.
Christian Mingle.
That's another guy that's got Lacey Shaber, right?
And she's a friend.
She's in a lot of them, isn't she?
She's the one that's in a lot of them?
No, she's in a lot of Hallmark movies.
Okay, that's what I'm thinking.
And she was actually in my very first movie.
Oh, fantastic.
20 years ago.
So this is a 10, Passion of Christian.
Absolutely.
I mean, yeah.
What was your first movie?
It's called Hometown Legend.
And it was a high school football film set in Alabama back and came out in about 2000.
It hasn't been out for years.
I mean, you wouldn't know it.
Christians love the football movies.
See, that's the thing.
I was the first, though.
Was that the first time?
Kendrick Brothers actually called me up when they were going to do Facing the Giants and asked for some advice about how to do like some of the football scenes and stuff like that.
Oh, that's cool.
So I was the first football, faith-based football movie.
I was the first Stephen Baldwin faith-based movie.
And I was the first Kevin Sorbo faith-based movie.
It's all Christian movies we can credit.
Yeah, you can either blame or you can.
I was telling you earlier, I was like, you can either say thank you or I could say you're welcome or I'm sorry.
But yeah, I always tended to be a little bit too far ahead of the curve.
But yes, that was my very first one.
And Lacey's great.
Christian Mingle was cute.
That was a cute movie.
That's a cute movie.
All right.
Passion of the Christ.
Here's what's interesting.
For sure, you can't go wrong with Passion of the Christ.
I mean, it's a great, I remember seeing it, and it really impacted me greatly.
But I would say that watching it now, it's very like, when's the last time you saw it?
Probably not since the theaters.
Yeah.
It's very like operatic.
Like it's very, very melodramatic.
And because we're doing something so different with The Chosen, the things that I like about The Passion of the Christ are more the scenes where he's with his mom and he's splashing water on her and stuff like that.
So it's definitely been an influence.
But it's not something I just pull out and pop into the DVD player and pull up the channel.
So are you not going to rate it 10 Passion of the Christ community?
No, I'm going to say I'm definitely, it's definitely a 10 in the sense that it really did change the game.
It changed the industry.
It's been a big influence.
I mean, when we end up portraying the crucifixion in a future season, spoiler alert, Jesus does die on the cross for our sins, for you and me.
Yeah.
But there are certain things I won't do because Mel already did them and they're so seared into everyone's minds.
Like I can't do it.
I can't do the torture poem thing.
That's terrible.
So because he did it.
And so in many ways, I owe a lot to him.
But yeah, that's a game changer film.
That was like Christians Around the World.
I don't know if you, how old were you when that came out?
When Passion of the Christ, I was in high school.
Was it 2004?
Yeah.
No, no, it was earlier.
It was pretty sure it was.
I was in high school, but I don't remember exactly.
I'll just do that here.
I saw The Lord of the Dance.
You're right.
You saw what?
Lord of the Dance on the same day.
Michael Flatley.
Yeah, it was not a good performance of Lord of the Dance.
I couldn't get over the passion, so I don't know.
Did you see Lord of the Dance after the Passion?
So yeah, you can.
We went to a screening with Mel Gibson, and I was like, I just was so just devastated all day that it just ruined Lord of the Dance for me.
And I love that crap.
Yeah.
Normally, note to self.
Try to avoid dancing merriment after Passion the Passion.
And with Michael Flatley.
Yeah.
But yeah, I think it was 2004.
But that was before.
I mean, I remember when the trailer for it, there was like a four-minute kind of sizzle reel of footage that people were emailing each other because YouTube wasn't around.
And it was.
The Lord of the Dance?
And then it became a gossip.
But for a year, what they did so brilliantly is they were screening that film that they gave it a whole year to build up the anticipation for it.
I mean, I don't think people can underestimate or overstate how huge that was at the time.
Yeah, it's almost like you really can't follow that in terms of success either because of the way it was, the way that it's kind of the viral way that it spread.
And it was just nuts.
It's hard.
Anyway.
What about Revelation Road 2?
Yeah.
Okay.
I think we know.
There's now a series, right?
I don't know.
Revelation. series with David shooting it is with Christy Swanson who's a friend of mine oh yeah because Christy was in What If with Kevin Serbo and you directed What If?
Yeah, that's okay.
With Kerry and Chuck.
Well, no, Kerry and Chuck weren't part of that.
Yes, they co-wrote that.
That's right, they did, right?
Yep.
Okay.
I have not seen Revelation wrote.
So 10.
That's another question.
All right, let's see.
God's Not Dead.
He's surely alive.
He is.
He's still living on the Instagram.
You can just say nice things if you want to, you know.
Yeah.
Well, no, I will say nice things because I believe them.
Like, Kevin is in that, and Harold Kronk directed it, who's a close friend, and the guy that I knew early on, the guys at Pure Flicks, you know, they did What If a little bit before then.
I mean, I certainly rooted for God's Not Dead.
It's not my kind of movie.
So it's not really the kind of movie that's made for me per se.
So I can't say I loved it, but I'm not also the one, I don't believe in crap anymore.
Not that I want to be like we trash Christian movies all the time, but there's a sense in which like as things have gotten more and more woke outside, I'm just kind of like, I'm more cool with that.
I'd prefer that you watch God's Not Dead to like all this other stuff.
And also, what's the alternative?
Should God's Not Dead not exist?
I mean, millions of people absolutely loved it.
So like, I've always been defensive of like the Kendricks and God's Not Dead.
Even, I mean, some of it's because I like some of their movies, but some of it's because it's like, even if it's not really my thing, it certainly should exist.
Like people, people's lives are impacted by it.
People loved it.
And there's a space for it, for sure.
It's amazing.
Recognizing you're not part of that market.
Yeah, it's just not really my kind of movie.
No, first year.
What about a Resurrection of Gavin Stone?
Kevin Stone?
One through 10.
So what should I say about Resurrection of Gavin Stone?
What would I say if I was not the one?
He made the movie, by the way.
the maker of that movie.
I would say we… That's what I would say.
So that's a trap for me.
Yeah, this is my wife off care.
Probably can't hear her very well, but I'm very proud of the humor of that movie and the performances in that movie.
But one of the reasons why it bombed the box office is because it shouldn't have been in theaters.
I don't think it was a – it's like I call it a really good Hallmark movie.
What year did that come out?
2017.
2017.
How did you write, how did you get the concept for that movie?
So it was an idea that I had heard.
I was having lunch with someone and they mentioned this project that they had come across.
And I love the concept.
The concept of, and I actually still stand by it.
I still like the movie.
I think it's very funny.
I think the concept is great, which is a guy who was the concept as they mentioned it to me was child actor, you know, gets assigned, now he's an adult, kind of down on his luck, gets in trouble, gets assigned community service at a local church, pretends to be Jesus to play.
So I'm sorry, pretends to be a Christian so that he can play Jesus in their big passion play.
And then in the process of playing Jesus, comes to know him more.
And I think that's a great idea.
It's a great concept.
And I think that we did a, I think there's a lot of scenes in it that are really funny.
I think there's a lot of kind of Babylon B-esque type moments, you know, kind of poking a little fun at Church World, but from an ultimately from a heartwarming perspective.
But yeah, it was a Hallmark movie, you know.
Yeah, for sure.
I don't think it holds up to the standards of mainstream theatrical releases, but I think it for sure fits well on Netflix and is doing well on Netflix right now.
Gosh.
Yeah, and it's such a weird time.
We're shifting from this distribution model where you make otherwise movies.
It puts out in theaters.
There's all these other avenues where things can fit better and find an audience in a different way.
Yeah.
For example, one of the things that faith-based movies suffer from is one of the things Resurrection of Gavin Stone suffered from, which is budgets sometimes don't make the difference between whether a movie is good or not.
But you're oftentimes using free locations, which then, like, so Resurrection of Gavin Stone, you know, we used the church that I worked at.
We used all these houses.
Like, everything was free locations because it was set in a church.
But what works maybe for a real life church doesn't look good on camera necessarily.
So it's just, it's very flat.
Like, just the look of the film is flat.
And there's just nothing kind of cinematic about it.
And I think that's.
The actors were good.
Yeah, right?
Yeah.
Brett Dalton from Agents of Shields.
Agents of Shield.
Yeah, I remember.
Yeah, he was good.
And Sean Michaels, WWE Whistler, who actually did a good job.
Angela Johnson is a great comic.
She played the lead female.
And then Neil Flynn from The Middle and the Janitor on Scrubs.
So a lot of good things going for it.
But yeah, we've talked now way too long about Gavin Stone.
Let's go back to Revelation Road 10.
I have about seven more questions about Resurrection and Gavin Stone.
So you're rating at a 10 passion of press level.
That's what I'm hearing.
Yeah.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
Yeah, that's all canceled right now.
Yeah, it's awesome.
You're developing these characters.
It's so awesome.
It's so awesome.
You can't allow just a single comment to break through the barrier of Kyle Snark.