The Chosen’s Dallas Jenkins | A Bee Interview

welcome everyone to the batmobi 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 the jenkins dinosaurs yeah the jenkins is and uh 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 the songs are not so good the making of the chosen right what season the accents what season do 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 jared a job that's right so season four i'm still holding out for um pontius pilate okay so you'll get to see us here it's acting ability in real time no but it's a great conversation yeah we roamed all over the place in terms of topics and it was wonderful it was great he's a great guy if you'd like to 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 so lots of nicholas cut here we go let's talk to dallas jenkins [Music] [Music] hey [Applause] [Music] 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 uh uh so i was born before the show okay so i was first okay so but i was actually named after the city because my dad in 1972 uh rededicated his life to christ which is the term we use in evangelicalism for kind of that rebirth at explo 72 which is a really famous uh event that they had at that 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 you caught you caught the 70s how were they yeah i was uh i for four years the first four years of my life i experienced the 70s it was wild it was a time it was a wild time 70s were crazy and then uh reagan got assassinated and our innocence was lost yeah and at five years old i knew you knew i was going to be a director yeah you guys are prepared does your dad ever do anything of note or no he's just sitting back watching me succeed yeah yeah that's right he's living vicariously yeah exactly um yeah i i i it took you guys a while to make fun of the chosen um but you were making fun of left behind pretty early on yeah very early on and uh yeah my yeah my dad uh wrote left behind back in 92 or 93 somewhere around there uh it was in i was in college when that started to 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 okay 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 okay and so we started our own thing and uh and so i actually worked for them for three years and then didn't get to be part of the making of the movie yeah so that was the i'm sorry that was the that was the left behind movie that actually ended up getting made the first one the cameron the curt cameron yes okay i i worked for the company in out of kentucky they got the rights to the books right and uh we're 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 and then the nick cage won that's right a few years ago and now the kevin sorber one is oh is that coming out too it's being made right now have you ever thought about remaking the thief in the night uh i think left behind is a replay for the night but no i actually it is very much on my radar um 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 yeah and your dad commented on it yeah or shared it or something and that was the most surreal moment for me you know 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 uh trump building his wall with left behind left over left behind which was a little bit more of a dig but uh but uh 70 million copies uh sold i think yeah i mean there's there's a lot out there i mean i think i got all my copies at a thrift store yeah because they were yeah there was a whole section we pre-ordered all of them and waited and we got them on release day so that's how we got you beat there yeah yeah you got it mike we have a cabin close to where uh tim lahaye used to have his cabin yeah so that's interesting yeah for real yeah yeah so anyway did your dad ever play rapture pranks on you growing up or do you have a good story where when it was considered a when you when you if you went to evangelical college uh in the 90s and the left behind books started to really take off there was kind of this common joke about like we should uh you know have you know someone walk into the cafeteria and there's only clothes in the cafeteria and there was a christian comedian who did a like a punk do you do you remember the show punked on mtv a punk 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 so i know you were joking but it's not that like people did that that's certain then she had a heart attack and died it was a terrible story because she believes [Laughter] 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 so you've got this like bible on b smirk on that makes me go what's the what's that because it's a weird thing to say like this see this girl over here her brother-in-law said this yeah yes so that's the joke so like how how you know how snarky do i get towards one of the fans of the show seriously saying something so beautiful we can say the funny thing so you can yeah that's fine um no um i think that's a lovely comment but what was the last sentence about rebuking said that jesus would be my best friend and also rebuke all of my back yes yeah that part i'm not so sure of uh but you don't think jesus would rebuke all somebody's bad habits not immediately maybe eventually yeah like maybe eventually but before the gentleman so they all have this accent that is that an accent that you guys made up is it an accent that you found in the holy land is there is there a particular place that you guys are getting that yeah that's a good question um the there's a middle eastern accent kind of with the rolled r and kind of the the kind of the hard vowel sounds and whatnot um and 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 don't want to go full passion of the christ where they're speaking aromatic right but we didn't want to go pure american accent we also didn't want to go the typical british thing but i what i say to the actors that come on board is is find whatever middle eastern accent you want just keep it consistent and so you you hear different you hear different accents uh on the show but but they're all they 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 who had a british e 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 sure where he spoke and it was it's how they used to speak uh in in uh high society it's like hollywood too it's like mid-atlantic transit right you'll hear tapes of everything is very formal and it's 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 um and so we that that's where we we try to showcase the differences and that's really cool in that in that region but the region was actually a melting pot capernaum was a trade route so you've got a lot of different accents and colors so you see you'll see different shades of of olive or brown or black in the 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 yeah there's a problem with i mean there's not a lot of differences you could add some diversity amongst your disciples yeah yeah they're for sure jewish privilege there's so much jewish privilege um yeah they are jewish males um we uh but we we have added um you know there's there's women in the in the among the followers three of them now yeah by the end of the season like a reboot like peter is now gender swapped and he's identifying yeah that's the new season but seriously look you watch old depictions of jesus you watch old jesus shows and it's all british white guys yeah the blonde yeah wavy hair yeah and you kind of push back against that which i thought was pretty cool yeah and it's it's really that we get asked about that often and it's not because of any any statement we're trying to make it's just we're trying to be authentic right it's literally like the reason you do it and i think that's something that you could smell when you watch jesus projects um i mean i grew up on them i'm sure you have to and and they all i shouldn't say all they 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 or the statue and um and so we were just saying we just have to have it feel as authentic as possible and i think another thing is when 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 and it still was hugely impactful and i think because of how real it felt and how connected it felt um that i think that excuse me in many ways kind of opened the door for us yeah to to to not feel like well you know real quick if you remember at the movie exodus came out and they cast christian bale and right um russell crowe uh yeah um no he was in noah oh he was the noah guy there was there was the other guy that i'm blanking on his name joseph no but it was but he's really good i'm sorry nicolas cage necklace keep going just keep this this will be really interesting wasn't any of those folks um but will smith i was just about to say i'm like you're going to now go to any current hot button no it was the guy who played ramsay's in uh in exodus great funds uh no it's i'm i'm ready to move on um but uh it's joel yes joel edgerton so oh got you but they said they cast him they cast those guys because you're like you know internationally uh you know especially here in the states you're just not going to get the audience if you if you don't do stars and um and typically that tends to be true but uh i think for us it worked to our advantage kind of the the authenticity brand that we were really leaning into i think it worked to our advantage should not have stars to not have white people to just go straight for the who's the best for the role and how do you how do you find actors like uh are people hesitant to be part of this kind of religious themed project um where do you find actors do you know that jared is an actor i am not on the chosen i don't see that happening too you're a little little white well there are roman parts are you actually an actor i am yeah okay but i i i actually i'm not trying to be awkward here yeah 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 oh we're casting out tomorrow and you get to find talent out here typically and you want to find it's good to find locals too um just because of travel and all that kind of stuff so when we film in dallas we have some local talent but uh yeah majority of them come from la and uh no there's never been an issue um with the content um in fact i would say the majority of our cast and crew aren't believers they just they really like the script um you know i think a lot of 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 gali and this man who changed the world and we're just trying to be authentic to it i think a lot of people have been just like because they like the writing because they they like the character that they get to play it's just never it's just never been an issue yeah jesus is a believer he's a yeah he's practicing catholics he's a christian yeah a lot of catholic jesus is around hmm i guess jim caviezel yeah yeah that's true that's true catholic jesus that's because they haven't heard of the second commandment oh that's right jesus we're getting criticized we get that from the big time reformers yeah no they're foreign folks reform folks don't mind that we we're actually uh well dan's a reformed guy he he's uh yeah we've got kind of an iconic class yeah yeah the reform guys have been pretty cool with the show it's uh there's 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 that's been that's paled in comparison to some of the other criticisms we've gotten so that's been a minor one okay yeah what is the biggest criticism i'm interested you said that um 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 so taking creative licenses um people who like the show um we had a scene in season two where uh 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 jesus would never you know struggle to find the words for anything he was god he never prepared that theologically i would never have prepared it yeah i've never prepared a sermon you know he knew what to say at all times thought through it yeah that's very interesting so it is interesting and 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've sought that they know they've solved that riddle like 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 like didn't know things at times yeah you know because like if you read the scriptures as this 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 and and do i have to put money in here dude no no that's no that's philippians i was just about to say philippians is what i it's kind of where i go where he gave her he gave he he did not see equality with god it's something to be grasped he put aside um his his some of his gods right it's the extent and can he give up an attribute is that his omniscience an attribute that he can give up or voluntarily set aside 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 he when the woman with the bleeding uh the issue of blood grabbed and he said who touched me i believe he was telling the truth yeah i believe he didn't know he was looking around who touched me and i think that if you are someone who believes jesus knew everything at all times and knew everyone's thoughts and then you have then then at best you thought you're thinking that jesus was just pretending to not know certain things right and i just uh that's hard for me to go doesn't set right yeah so but it's an interesting question and and um i love the conversation but that's been the number one thing from the show that bothered people was that ten seconds of 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 like yeah yeah yeah uh that we've we've talked about how we have gotten to a place where we could we could troll people so so bad because there's so many things that 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 i'm responsible for the spiritual life of millions of people i don't think that but there is a way 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 things well like season six he just you know on the cross turns to the camera and he's like the mormons were right yeah just something because there i'm already because i work with some lds folks they already hate me for it so i'm like maybe i could just just go all in yeah and just totally like just ruin people you're not denying jesus not a dragon season the so so yeah it's it's being workshopped isn't it just maybe coming to america in season so that's funny for the resurrection so that's that's funny because i was on the set you know the set that we we've used and will continue to use at times um 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 like kind of native american design on it and i didn't know the history of this part of the the church and i said uh what's this they say this is where we filmed the book of mormon um we're filming some of the book of mormon videos and and this is uh you know and i go oh yeah well what's with the native american stuff and they say oh this is when jesus came to the americas and i said yeah i'm sorry what yeah wait a minute and uh and so we had this they were kind of educating me on and i thought okay good to know all right we're gonna shoot over here on this side no but it was really cool and uh 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 uh didn't register didn't register until about two years ago yeah so angel studios i know some 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 they are you in complete creative control uh how many members of the church jesus christ of latter-day saints have you converted reminding me of like when when you're using your gps or waze 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 um left i'm glad i'm being annoying yeah so let me yeah 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 um and they are they they say that themselves the the people that i work with um no official affiliation at all with the church formally we're not affiliated with any denomination any faith tradition any religion at all um and nor is anyone affiliated with us and then your last one was i'll repeat it for you no just just just the second part please lord no how many members of the church jesus christ of latter-day saints have you converted that i will not answer um but uh no it has been actually a really wonderful uh experience uh actually getting to know so many people and to also talk about the differences of the different faith traditions including the things in which we vociferously degrade disagree has been really fascinating and there has been among people of other religions catholicism lds what not who have been really intrigued by the chosen because if they didn't know any better they would have 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 you know 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 it's exactly the jesus that i that i love same as the catholics um but what they're finding is is as an evangelical i tend to be you know less quote unquote religious obviously that's kind of our thing is no structure kind of a 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 like finding the love of a personal relationship with jesus yeah you know that doesn't necessarily cause them to give up their religion but just it becomes more personal than it had been that's really interesting i've been working in the industry a bit and i've been working a lot with catholics like lately and i'm finding that they are way more like even free with their relationship with jesus than some of the folks that i've known that are protestants like over my years and i and they seek the lord about everything that's the lord's opinion about everything or the saints yeah now these these guys man that's it you probably know them you probably know these guys but they're they're really sweet guys but they seek out on every issue and i'm just like amazed by it yeah you sometimes go grow up as an evangelical you don't when you're told respect that and you're told they only talk to priests they never talk to god right and then you meet him and you go oh they talk to god all the time and they talk to priests yeah so get priests in our lives i feel like i need a priest i have one oh he's a height he's a high priest he's a high priest and jesus christ oh that's how i introduce you [Laughter] so do you like movies yeah yeah you like 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 bee 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 uh for 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 the the christian space even the christian media space there used to be i know you guys know this there used to be the uh the wittenberg door right that was also legitimately funny yeah but then it hadn't been too popular for a while when you guys came along i'm telling you it was such a breath of fresh air and uh i mean once a week my wife was here in the room i i'll i'll text her a screenshot of your 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 so go on okay we like this this is really nice yes but thank you for what for what you do and and uh and it's it's it's truly truly brilliant it's awesome we're excited about you too i'm excited i love the chosen and i'm a huge fan oh i was going somewhere with my movies question oh yeah we should do that so we're gonna we're gonna ask you to rate some christian movies very exciting now if you if you're not comfortable you know if you're buddies with these guys if you don't want to slam their movie that's fine or you can just i do i mean i'm friends with a lot of these guys but i i uh yeah we'll see what happens so we're gonna write them between one uh one is noah and ten which is passion of the christ so from yeah so that is is that a scale that's not 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 whether it was i don't know you can make up the scale no one is noah and tina's passion he's like no you can't make up the scale that's what a scale is it's an intuitive thing so number one is uh left behind starring nicholas cage did he not say uh are you nodding or shaking my head is signaling to you i say you can say uh i i have not been a fan of the left behind movies that have been made no none of the ones none of them is there a best one um i i mean i love nicolas cage so yeah i mean 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 he could get nicolas cage would have been in the top five you know so i for sure like nicholas cage and his performance was fine um uh 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 not too bad um and i love kirk cameron i mean we're buddies fantastic um great great guy um but uh yeah i'm not a fan of the left behind okay cool all right second one noah okay all right i'm not gonna give it a one that was on the noah yeah so last temptation of christ i guess i don't think it really counts yeah that's a weird one um i actually don't think it's that great of a movie so like i i thought it was setting the theology it's just really interesting yeah but i'll give it a i'll give it a three okay okay uh christian mingle um that's another got that's got uh lacey chabert right and she's a friend she's she's in a lot of them isn't she she's the one that's in the level she's no she's in a lot of homework movies okay that's one thing and she was actually in my very first movie oh fantastic 20 years ago so this is a 10. passionate 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 it came out in about 2000. uh it hasn't been out for years i'm sure but you wouldn't know it but christians love the football movie yeah so that's the thing i was the first though like the kendrick brothers actually called me up when they were gonna 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 a faith-based movie and i was first kevin sorbo faith-based all christian movies we can bless we can credit yeah you can either blame or you can i i was i was telling you earlier i was like you can either say thank you or or i'm you know i could say you're welcome or i'm sorry but uh yeah i've i always tended to be a little bit uh too far ahead of the curve okay um but um yes that was my very first one and lacey's great christian mingle was uh was it was cute that's cute all right passion of the christ um here's what's interesting for sure you can't go wrong with passion of christ i mean it's it's a great i remember seeing it and it really impacted me greatly um but i would say that watching it now it's very like it's last time you saw it probably not since the theaters yeah it's very like operatic like it's very slow-motion yeah very very melodramatic and and because we're doing something so different with the chosen um the things that i like about the passion of christ are more the like the scenes where he's with his mom and he's splashing water on her and stuff like that uh so um and so it's definitely been an influence um but it's not something i just pull out and pop into the dvd player and yeah pull up are you not going to rate it 10 passion of the christ no i'm going to say i i'm definitely it's definitely a 10 in the sense that it really did change the game so it changed the industry um it's it's it's been a big influence um the fact i mean when we end up portraying the crucifixion in a future season spoiler alert uh jesus does die on the cross for our sins for you yeah but um 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 i can't do the torture poem thing you know so uh because he did it and so in many ways i owe a lot to him but um yeah that was 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 the passion of christ i was in high school yeah was it 2004 yeah no it was earlier it was it was uh pretty sure it was i was in high school but i don't remember exactly so yeah i saw the lord of the damn same day no right here you saw what lord of the dance on the same day michael flatland yeah it was uh not a it was not a good performance of lord of the dance i i couldn't get over the passion so i didn't did you see that after yeah yeah you can't i'm already scared there's no 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 oh yeah normally note to self try to avoid dancing merriment after laura's uh passion and with michael flatley yeah but um but yeah i think it's 2004. but that was before i mean i remember when the trailer for it there was like a four minute kind of you know sizzle reel of footage that people were emailing each other because youtube wasn't right and it was it was for the dancer um and then he became a professor but for a year what they did so brilliantly is they they were screening that film that they gave it a whole year to like build up the uh 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 it was kind of the viral way that it spread and it was just nuts yeah it's hard anyway what about revelation road two yeah okay i think we know uh there's now a series right i don't know revelations i'm serious with chris christie david shooting it with christy swanson who's a friend of mine oh yeah what if uh that's right with with kevin serbo and you were you directed whatever yeah okay that was with carrie and chuck was carrying or no carrie and chuck weren't part of that they yes they co-wrote that that's right they did right yep okay um i have not seen revelation right okay okay so 10. all right let's see um god's not dead uh he's surely alive yes he's so living on the internet um you can just say nice things yeah well no i will say nice things because i believe them and like kevin is in that and harold cronk directed it is a close friend and the guy that i knew early on the guys at pure flix you know they did they did what if a little bit before then i mean i'm i certainly rooted for guzman that it's not my kind of movie so i'm not it's not really the kind of movie that's made for me per se uh so i can't say i loved it but i also i'm not also the one i don't believe in crappy you know that won't be like we trash christian movies all the time but there's a sense in which like as things have gotten more and more wilk outside i'm just kind of like i'm more cool with that yeah i'd prefer that you watch it god's not dead to like all this other stuff well also what's the alternative should god not dead not exist i mean right sure millions of people absolutely loved it right so like i've always been defensive of like the kendricks and and gaza dead even 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 yeah it certainly should exist like people people's lives were impacted by it people loved it and it's and there's a space for it for sure it's amazing it's recognizing it's not it's not part you're not part of that market yeah it's just not really my kind of movie yeah no first year what about a resurrection of gavin stone one through ten so what should i say about resurrection kevin stone what would i say if i was not that he made the movie by the way the the maker of that movie i would say we i i i would say if i say it so it's a trap for me um yeah this is my wife off-camera i probably can't hear her very well but i i'm very proud of the humor of that movie and the performances in that movie um but it one of the reasons why it bombed at the box office because it should have been in theaters i don't think it was a it's a kind of it's like i i could i call it a really good hallmark movie mm-hmm um what do you do next uh 2017 17. how did you write how did you get the concept for that movie so it was an idea that i had heard uh 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 now he's an adult uh 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 yeah so he can play jesus in their big passion play and then in the process of playing jesus he comes to know him more yeah and i think that's a great idea it's a great concept and i and i think that we did i think there's a lot of scenes in it that are really funny i think there's a lot of kind of babylon bs type yeah uh moments you know kind of poking a little fun at church world but but from a from an ultimate right from a heartwarming perspective but uh but yeah it was it was uh it was it was a hallmark movie you know that yeah for sure yeah i don't think it holds up to the standards of like mainstream theatrical releases but i think it for sure fits well on netflix and is doing well on netflix right now yeah that's such a weird time you know we're shifting from this distribution model where you're making it we're going to believe this puts out in theaters now there's all these other avenues where things can fit better and find an audience in a different way yeah like like for example the one of the things that that faith-based movies suffer from is what one of the things resurrection of gavin stone suffered from which is budgets sometimes don't make don't don't make the difference between whether a movie is good or not but you're oftentimes using free locations which then like for 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 we were it was a 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 just the actors were good yeah right yeah brett dalton from agents of shield yeah i remember yeah he was good and uh shawn michaels uh wwe wrestler 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 right the janitor he was a janitor on scrubs so a lot of good things going for it but yeah it was we've talked not way too long about about about go back to revelation road i have about seven more questions about resurrection so you're rating it at a ten passionate christ level that's what i'm hearing yeah coming up next for babylon bee subscribers uh yeah let's all get canceled right now yeah it's awesome you're developing this character it's so awesome you can allow just a single i'm allowed here i'm saying that's awesome to break through the barrier of uh kyle snark i saw wayne's wilderness eight times in the theater oh yeah mike myers is a huge influence on i saw starship troopers i think that's a bummer this has been another interview on the babylon b from the dedicated team of certified fake news journalists you can trust reminding you to go forth and punch satan right in the face [Music] crazy

Channel: The Babylon Bee

Views: 35,695

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Id: WMgc_6IPVQE

Length: 37min 25sec (2245 seconds)

Published: Tue May 17 2022