Ten years ago, in the wake of Noah, Exodus: Gods and Kings, and the History Channel’s The Bible miniseries, a couple of major networks tried to cash in on the growing appetite for biblical stories by launching some Scripture-themed TV shows.
NBC got the ball rolling with A.D.: The Bible Continues, a series beginning with the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was canceled after just one season. By that point, ABC had already started shooting Of Kings and Prophets, a series about David, Goliath, and King Saul’s family. When it premiered one year later, it lasted all of two episodes before the network pulled the plug.
Now, a decade later, there is another major series about Jesus and the disciples and another about Saul and David. This time, they’re on streaming platforms, not legacy networks. And they’re both very popular. With the premiere of House of David season 2 last Sunday—one week after The Chosen’s fifth season became available worldwide on its free app—they are both genuine, bona fide, multiseason TV shows.
But there’s more to note here than larger viewership and relative longevity. In both cases, the makers of these shows are using their success to create new infrastructure, with the aim of supporting more Bible-based media in the long term.
The Chosen’s production company, in addition to running its own app and raising funds through the nonprofit Come and See Foundation, is launching a series of “Chosen universe” spinoffs.
And the makers of House of David used the show’s second season to launch a brand-new streaming channel called Wonder Project, named for the “faith and values” production company cofounded two years ago by series creator Jon Erwin and former YouTube and Netflix executive Kelly Merryman Hoogstraten.
The channel—which features a variety of classic films and TV shows as well as new offerings—costs $8.99 per month or $89.99 per year and is currently available through Prime Video. The long-term goal is to make it a direct-to-consumer app.
“We wanted to create a place where there could be some level of independence of this content being made over and over again,” said Erwin, who codirected hit films like I Can Only Imagine and Jesus Revolution before launching Wonder Project.
Erwin, who has worked with a variety of studios since directing October Baby with his brother Andrew in 2011, said the constant moving around (he likens it to musical chairs) and changing corporate structures made it necessary to “build something of our own.”
“So often in dealing with studios—and I love representing Christianity and middle America to many of these studios, and they’re very receptive—but you feel as if you’re building everyone else’s home and they’re all built on sand,” he said. “And whether it’s a regime change or an acquisition or a merger, a lot of times you feel like years of work are gone overnight.
“So the idea of building something that could really last and endure the test of time … was very inspiring to me.”
Erwin said he had the idea for a streaming channel before House of David got the green light. He wanted “an HBO for the faith audience globally,” and he always intended for the dramatic series to serve as a hook.
The first season of House of David, which came out between February and April of this year, paved the way by going out on Prime Video globally, where it was an instant smash and ultimately attracted 44 million viewers worldwide: “More than every movie ticket I’ve ever sold to any movie I’ve ever made,” Erwin said. “It was so cool to see the show blow past any expectations that we had or that Amazon had, just in a matter of days.”
The second season went into production right away. But instead of going to regular Prime Video, it premiered on Wonder Project the same day the channel launched. It is, for now, only available there (which, itself, is only available in the US). The season will become available on Prime Video globally at some point in the future.
In a world where platforms like Angel Studios and Pure Flix already exist—Erwin himself recently finished shooting a George Washington movie for Angel, due in theaters next summer—some might wonder whether the world needs another faith-based streaming platform.
But Wonder Project aims to serve a broader audience by mixing religious titles with more mainstream fare like Sherlock, The Sound of Music, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty—and it will offer the official, edited-for-TV versions of some movies, which is something no other platform does.
“It’s like, ‘Here’s a bunch of stuff that we think your families will love, because our families love it,’” said Erwin. “We’ve scoured decades of entertainment to pull together a curated library … including many things that you’ve forgotten how much you loved or you didn’t know where to find.”
Some might find it ironic that a family-friendly streaming channel would have House of David as its flagship show, given that the series is full of violence. (The first episode of season 2 is basically one big battle sequence.) There’s plenty of potential in the biblical story for other, more risqué elements too. (Images of David in military garb walking in front of his men with a bag in his hand has some people wondering if the series is going to tackle 1 Samuel 18:27.)
Erwin admits that what is considered appropriate for children will vary from family to family: “My oldest is 16 and our youngest is 8. … There are some brutal parts of the Bible—and the Old Testament, especially—so that can be hard to adapt to film. But my goal in the adaptation is to make the version of the show that I would feel comfortable watching with all my kids.”
“It’s violence in the tradition of the Lord of the Rings movies, not Game of Thrones,” he added. “It’s in that PG-13 space, is the goal.”
The series is coming out amidst an explosion of biblical storytelling on screens both big and small. Mel Gibson is making two movies about the Resurrection. Angel Studios is releasing an animated movie about David in December and a Nativity-themed film called Zero A.D. (starring Jim Caviezel as King Herod) sometime next year.
Fox is producing a three-part series about the women of Genesis called The Faithful. You can find a comedy about Moses called The Promised Land on YouTube. There’s even an R-rated horror movie called The Carpenter’s Son about Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, starring Nicolas Cage and slated for next month.
The two major streaming platforms are getting in on the action too.
Netflix has been a bit more tentative so far. Its offerings include a multifaith documentary series (Testament: The Story of Moses), a thriller based on an apocryphal-gospel-inspired movie they acquired after it was completed (Mary), and a romance that sets the Book of Ruth in modern-day Tennessee (Ruth & Boaz).
Prime Video, on the other hand, has jumped into the genre with both feet, not only producing House of David but also signing an exclusivity deal with The Chosen and coproducing its spinoffs The Chosen Adventures (an animated series launching October 17) and Joseph of Egypt (a live-action miniseries currently being filmed in New Mexico). Amazon MGM, the studio owned by Prime Video’s parent company, will also release two Chosen movies in theaters worldwide in 2027 and 2028.
One remarkable aspect of the biblical media surge is its genre diversity. The Chosen takes its cues from Friday Night Lights and The Wire, House of David borrows from the Lord of the Rings and Marvel movies, and The Promised Land models itself on The Office and Parks and Recreation.
Erwin finds the variety freeing and encouraging. “I’ve often said Christianity is an audience to serve, it’s a cause to champion, it’s a story to be told—it is not a genre, you know?” he said. “I think we have limited ourselves by thinking that … all these things have to look and feel the same. What I love is that there’s this group of filmmakers and we’re all serving the same cause in our own way.”
Beyond House of David, Wonder Project has other projects in the works, including a drama called It’s Not Like That, starring Scott Foley as a widowed pastor who learns to love again; Sarah’s Oil, a true story about a young Black girl who finds oil on her land, to be released in theaters by Amazon MGM on November 7; and The Breadwinner, a comedy starring Nate Bargatze that TriStar Pictures has planned for next March.
Then there’s House of David. Erwin envisioned the series as a trilogy, with three seasons charting the title character’s rise from shepherd to warrior to king, and he’s now working with writers on the final installment, which he hopes to shoot next year. (He’s also thinking of doing a second trilogy about “the back half of David’s life,” but it would “almost be a different show” with a different cast.)
“I’m grateful to be able to tell the story, and I would love to keep telling it,” Erwin said. “I can’t wait to get back for season three.”
Peter T. Chattaway is a film critic with a special interest in Bible movies.
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