‘The Chosen’ announces Season 4 streaming; show’s creator gives Season 5 preview

Jesus and the disciples during Season 4 of “The Chosen.” / Credit: The Chosen/Mike Kubeisy

CNA Staff, May 30, 2024 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

The creators of the hit series “The Chosen” announced May 29 that Season 4 will be available for public streaming exclusively on “The Chosen” app and on the show’s social media platforms beginning Sunday, June 2, at 7 p.m. ET. 

Episode 2 will be released on Thursday, June 6, at 8:30 p.m. ET with ensuing episodes being released on Sundays and Thursdays over the course of four weeks. 

Season 4 will be available for free on “The Chosen” app first before being released on other streaming platforms. Additional streaming and broadcast options for Season 4 viewing will be announced soon.

Dallas Jenkins, creator, director, and co-writer of the show, announced on March 10 that due to legal matters the release of the current season would be delayed.

“The Chosen” premiered in 2017 with its pilot episode, “The Shepherd.” Jenkins then had the idea to create a multi-season show about Jesus and his followers. VidAngel — now Angel Studios — saw “The Shepherd” and decided to partner with Jenkins to create “The Chosen,” which became the largest-ever crowdfunded television series.

Angel Studios created the pay-it-forward model, which allowed others to donate financially to fund “The Chosen,” enabling others to watch it for free. However, Jenkins explained in his video announcement that of the pay-it-forward contributions, “less than half of it actually came to us. It was somewhere around 40%.”

Jenkins explained further that “The Chosen” was “solely responsible for the financing of future seasons.” Additionally, they had to form a company, pay more than 65 full-time employees as well as the cast, run marketing campaigns, and more.

In 2022, realizing the current model was not sustainable, “The Chosen” came to a new agreement with Angel Studios, which allowed them to shift part of their relationship to the Come and See Foundation — a nonprofit whose mission is getting “The Chosen” to the entire world and financing its production. With this agreement, new seasons of the show were released on “The Chosen” app and on Angel Studios simultaneously before anywhere else. 

Shortly after the agreement, however, Angel Studios “breached our contract on multiple occasions to the extent that we believed it should be terminated, which would dissolve our relationship with Angel,” Jenkins explained.

In order to solve the dispute, a third-party arbitrator was used and on May 28 the arbitrator “comprehensively affirmed our position and agreed that the contract had been breached,” Jenkins said. The relationship between “The Chosen” and Angel Studios is effectively over. 

“We do not take pleasure in this and I want to thank Angel and the Harmon brothers for their extraordinary efforts in helping launch this show, but we came to the conclusion that we simply had no choice for the future of our company and this show,” he expressed.

In an email response to CNA, Lori Heiselman, vice president of public relations at Angel Studios, said the company will be appealing the decision.

Despite the delay in the release of Season 4, Jenkins, the cast, and the crew continue to be hard at work filming Season 5, which will depict the events that took place during Holy Week. 

“For three weeks we had over 600 people per day on set and we filmed some of the biggest moments from Holy Week,” Jenkins told CNA in an interview. Some of these scenes, Jenkins shared, include the triumphal entry and the turning of the tables. 

“If the content ends up as intense and passionate and exciting as the filming, this is going to be an immensely impactful season,” he said, adding: “We’ve had multiple scenes where the 600 extras were in the scene with us and afterwards tears just streaming down their face telling me ‘My goodness just watching this is changing my life.’”

When asked if he feels any added pressure that this season depicts some of the most important and historic moments in history, Jenkins shared that since Season 1 “there’s pressure to get all of this right.”

“I mean Season 1 when we were just telling the story of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, I felt immense weight to get Mary Magdalene’s story right,” he said. “I want to honor these people that God chose to change the world and chose to be followers of Jesus here on Earth … So, we’ve always felt the pressure to get it right, but at the same time I feel like God’s got this.”

Jenkins added that he also tries to ignore the noise — whether it be criticism or praise — and focuses on “honoring God and the Spirit and the intention of Jesus in the Gospels. And if I can do that, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Season 5 or Season 1, or whether we’re covering Holy Week or the launch of his ministry, every word matters and getting this right matters.”