After a recent legal dispute, The Chosen has decided to sever ties with Angel Studios.
Dallas Jenkins, creator, producer, director, and writer of The Chosen released a video message on Thursday discussing the reasoning behind this decision.
"First off, before I say anything else, The Chosen would not have launched without some of the ideas, initiatives and extraordinary efforts of the Harmon brothers and so many of the incredible employees at the company," said Jenkins. "They introduced me to my founding partner, Daryl Eaves, and we both love them and will always feel a great sense of appreciation for what they did to help bring this show to the world."
He says, however, that they realized early on that there were some good things and bad things about working with Angel Studios. The good news was Dallas would have full creative freedom and ownership of the show.
"The bad news is we were responsible for more than expected for this show to survive," Jenkins explained.
He says this became even more evident when after charging viewers for the show didn't work, we decided the show should be free. Angel Studios came up with the Pay it Forward model where people could choose to pay for the show for themselves and others so it could be free around the world.
"Less than half of your Pay it Forward contributions came to us. It was somewhere around 40 percent," Jenkins explained. "The rest went to marketing and Angel Studios."
Jenkins says they had to do almost everything from scratch, which wasn't sustainable, so in 2022, they came up with a new agreement with Angel Studios.
"Part of that allowed us to shift our relationship to Come and See, the non-profit whose mission includes getting The Chosen to the world and financing our production," Jenkins explained. "The old Chosen App became the Angel app, where other projects were added, and we created a new Chosen app solely dedicated to The Chosen."
This meant that when people donated to the show, 100 percent of the donations would go towards production, marketing and international translations of The Chosen. This also meant The Chosen would be released on the Angel app and The Chosen app before being released anywhere else.
Dallas says shortly after the agreement, Angel Studios breached their contract multiple times.
"It was to the extent that we believed it should be terminated, which would dissolve our relationship with Angel," said Dallas. "Angel, of course, disagrees with that assessment. and ultimately the only way to solve the dispute was to exercise the provision in the contract where we engaged a third-party arbitrator."
Jenkins says they wanted to solve this in a Biblical way, not to make it a public spectacle. He says private arbitration was the only way to do this, so it didn't harm the show or the reputation of Jesus and this project.
On May 28, the arbitrator comprehensively affirmed The Chosen's position and agreed the contract had been breached in multiple and material ways, terminating the contract and dissolving their relationship.
"We take no pleasure in this," said Jenkins. "The situation is ongoing."
Moving forward, Dallas says The Chosen will only be available on the Chosen app or DVD, with episode one of Season 4 streaming on June 2.