An Epic Feud Between Two Giants in Christian Entertainment Comes to a Head

A feud of biblical proportions—so to speak—came to a head this week with the announced streaming delay of the fourth season of The Chosen, a series about the life of Jesus Christ that has become arguably the most popular TV show in the world.

Dallas Jenkins, director-writer-creator of The Chosen, announced Sunday by way of a YouTube video that the free streaming of the fourth season of the show will be delayed due to "legal matters." Fans eager to see the new season can still pay to see it in a theater.

While Jenkins was purposely vague in his comments, SEC filings from the show's distributor, Angel Studios, indicate a breach between The Chosen LLC and the studio. According to the filing from February, The Chosen LLC informed Angel Studios in April 2023 that it intended to dissolve its content agreement due to breach of contract, pending arbitration between the two companies. In October, The Chosen LLC reiterated its intent to move on from Angel Studios.

The delay is the latest issue between the two companies. In March 2022, Angel Studios filed a lawsuit against Brad Pelo, who was an executive of Angel before jumping ship and becoming president of Chosen Inc. Since that time, the two companies came to a new content agreement, resolving the lawsuit.

The nasty rivalry comes at a time when faith-based projects have finally been hitting their stride with titles like Jesus Revolution—produced by Kingdom Story Co. and distributed by Lionsgate Films—after years of miscues since Passion of the Christ took Hollywood by storm in 2004.

Angel Studios, in addition to The Chosen and other faith-based projects, distributed and marketed Sound of Freedom, the film that made $250 million worldwide despite complaints that it exaggerated the heroics of a vigilante who saved children from sex traffickers.

Angel Studios has found further success by selling streaming rights to Sound of Freedom to Amazon Prime, while its latest release, Cabrini, is earning a 91 percent score among 64 critics at Rotten Tomatoes. And Chosen Inc. is working on several spinoffs of its namesake show about Jesus, as well as new projects that will tell stories about different characters from the Bible.

Neither Angel Studios nor Chosen Inc. would speak to Newsweek for this report, but the stakes in the ongoing turmoil are huge: Angel Studios said in its 2022 lawsuit that it expected to collect as much as $2.6 billion from the planned seven seasons of the show.

The trail of legal documents and SEC filings tell a tale of behind-the scenes infighting that has gone on for at least three years, culminating with the delayed season amid legal arbitration that could take weeks, months or even years to settle.

The Genesis of the Feud

Angel Studios began in 2013 as VidAngel, a service created by brothers Neal, Daniel, Jordan and Jeffrey Harmon, which stripped out inappropriate scenes from mainstream movies to make them palatable for family viewing. It caught on with Christians but was nearly put out of business when, in 2016, Disney, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. sued the service.

Pelo had been aware of VidAngel at least since 2018 when he licensed some rights to one of its shows called Dry Bar Comedy for a new platform he was working on called "Say." When he got a look at The Chosen, he joined the company.

Initially, he was very effective, helping VidAngel navigate bankruptcy, settle with the studios that sued it and to remain in business, while also encouraging it to become a more traditional studio. They entered into a full-time employment contract in late 2020 and on March 25, 2021, VidAngel was reborn as Angel Studios.

But according to the lawsuit, things quickly headed south, such as when Pelo allegedly advocated to allow Chosen LLC to strip the Angel Studios' logo from the opening credits of the version of The Chosen that was being prepared for broadcast television.

Even though Pelo was chief distribution officer, the lawsuit alleges that his focus was on content creation, and he insisted that the company was too much of a "platform" rather than a "studio."

Things became so testy that on July 14, 2021, he allegedly demanded that executives choose whether they were on "Team Chosen" or "Team Angel." A few months later, Pelo left Angel and eventually joined Chosen LLC as president.

Angel's complaint against Pelo alleges that acting as Chosen LLC president, he sent a "bombshell" letter to Angel Studios asking it to voluntarily give up so many of its distribution rights to The Chosen that it would have been left solely with rights to older seasons of the show that it could stream free for audiences.

'The Chosen' Season 4 Delayed

While the issues raised in the lawsuit were settled by a content sharing agreement in October 2022, which cleared the way for the release of Season 3, the issues between the two companies have put Season 4's release date in doubt.

In Jenkins' YouTube video announcing the delay, for example, he refers to Angel Studios as "our former partner," and he contrasts Sound of Freedom with The Chosen in terms of profitability.

"That movie in theaters alone generated more gross (receipts) in just a couple of months than The Chosen has ever generated gross-wise in an entire year," Jenkins says in his video.

He added: "Here's what's even more sobering; with a movie, the money that comes in can be kept. With us, a show that's multiple seasons, we must keep spending money that is generated for the next season."

Jenkins also said that Chosen Inc. is spending tens of millions of dollars to translate the show into different languages and distribute it worldwide, with help coming from the Come & See Foundation, a nonprofit group.

SEC filings also show how the cost of The Chosen has risen dramatically over the years. In 2020, production cost $8.2 million annually, a year later it was $20.3 million and in 2022, it was $47.7 million.

The salary for Jenkins climbed from $174,166 in 2020 to $1.1 million two years later— still a pittance in Hollywood standards for someone instrumental in the production of a hit TV show.

Jenkins noted in his video that episodes of Season 4 are in theaters and that a DVD is in its future for those wishing to binge-watch the season now that streaming is delayed, and efforts are underway to bring the season to churches and prisons.

But SEC documents indicate that Chosen Inc. has limited rights to freely stream The Chosen, stipulating that it can do so on The Chosen app only if the show also streams on the Angel app, which is owned by Angel Studios.

Chosen Inc., though, is able to release the entire Season 4 in theaters, but that means fans accustomed to seeing the show for free won't be able to perhaps until arbitration concludes. Cinemark, for one, is selling tickets to episodes 1-8 for $30, spread over three separate showings.

But Jenkins told fans in his video that he is determined to keep making the show available on The Chosen app for free, but he adds that it's an expensive endeavor that relies on financial help from viewers, of which less than 5 percent have made donations.

Not mentioned in the video is how its relationship with Lionsgate may be impacted, as Chosen Inc. struck a deal last year that gave the mainstream studio certain distribution rights to The Chosen. Lionsgate did not respond to a request for comment.

The Chosen, viewed by about 200 million people worldwide, also has certain seasons streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Peacock, though not Season 4.

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Pelo told Newsweek last year that 16,500 people who participated in an equity crowdfunding campaign own a collective 46 percent of Chosen Inc. and are therefore entitled to some of the profits—thus they, too, have a stake in the outcome of the ongoing drama.