Our modern media environment is dominated by half a dozen streaming services providing all types of visual entertainment right at our fingertips.
But how much of that entertainment is edifying and God-glorifying?
A service called VidAngel that automatically filters out inappropriate content from shows on services on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, has now launched their own new original content.
And their brand-new series called “The Chosen” tells the story of the Gospels in a powerful new way. Watch the trailer for yourself:
Netflix and Hulu and Amazon, Oh My!
The big dogs for streaming services seem to dominate the market with a deluge of original content, much of which is inappropriate for Christian families.
Sadly, with the way the current generation is enraptured by the world, these streaming services provide content that is simply more aligned to worldly demand.
However, not all the content is bad, and even some shows would be mostly fine if only a few scenes or even just a few curse words were removed.
VidAngel provides that exact service by automatically filtering content from other streaming services and removing everything that is flagged as inappropriate.
Now as the market for faith-based films is engaging a wide audience, VidAngel sees an opportunity to not only filter other content but to also produce some of their own.
A new series set to premiere on VidAngel tells the story of the Gospels and is called “The Chosen”.
Matthew Faraci, the Executive Producer of the new series, explains while the increased market on the big screen signals an opening, “we live in the era of the small screen. That’s where the action really hits, particularly episodic stuff.”
As an independent streaming service, VidAngel is slowly adding mainly faith-based films or episodic series to attract crowds that want a safer place to enjoy entertainment.
Matthew Faraci believes this is a prime opportunity for their new Jesus series.
And “The Chosen” is different than other Gospel-themed episodic series on more popular media.
While Mark Burnett’s “The Bible” and “A.D. The Bible Continues” have been a strong force for spreading the message of Jesus, Faraci’s new series takes a new twist to understanding God.
“The Chosen” is written to tell about Jesus from multiple perspectives. Each episode will tell parts of His story, featuring each perspectives’ own thoughts at the time.
Faraci hopes that “The Chosen” will bring in new subscribers for VidAngel the way “House of Cards” did for Netflix. “Netflix has sort of two distinct eras in its growth: before ‘House of Cards’ and after ‘House of Cards.’ VidAngel is going to be the same way; before ‘The Chosen’ and after ‘The Chosen.’”
That’s a pretty bold statement, especially from an up-and-coming director. However, Faraci isn’t just speaking out of human strength. He has already seen God move mightily, in regard to financing this project.
Production of “The Chosen” has only been made possible by an enormously successful crowdfunding campaign hauling in nearly $10.3 million from 15,000 supporters.
Faraci notes that he also believes this is largely in part to the timeliness of his calling with “The Chosen”. “Hollywood has been very slow to provide enough supply in the marketplace to meet consumer demand for [faith and value-based] content.”
Faraci is also seeing this project in the larger scale. He desires to open the floodgates for other God-inspired directors to be able to access the (smaller, but mighty) silver screen.
His vision is that “any faith-based creator who has a great dream can fund it and distribute it and do everything without any barriers. There’s no reason anymore with the advantages of technology as they are that you have to be beholden to somebody to get your content out there, and that’s the long-term dream of this.”
“The Chosen” is planned to be a seven-season series, coming out over the next few years. “The first four episodes of The Chosen are now available to own on TheChosen.TV with the full season available to watch in the fall on VidAngel.”
See the trailer for yourself:
Insert trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1-FoFj8Jbo