'The Chosen' Finds New Home on Streaming Platform: 'A Tremendous Win'

Jesus is heading to Disney.

Seasons one through three of “The Chosen,” the popular Bible series chronicling the life of Jesus, will soon be streaming on Disney+, according to a post from Disney news blog, Inside the Magic, which showrunner Dallas Jenkins shared to his social media accounts.

Disney+ is the latest platform to stream the series. Fans of the Bible show can find episodes on other streaming sites, like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, the Angel app, BYUtv, and The Chosen app.

News of the expanded audience comes after Jenkins announced season four of “The Chosen” will soon become available for streaming on the heels of an extended theatrical release, CBN News reported.

In March, Jenkins released a video explaining the show’s previous model of making episodes immediately available for free “wasn’t proving to be sustainable,” given cost-of-production increases as the series’ quality improves. Additionally, much of the revenue generated by theatrical releases is going toward the remaining three seasons of the seven-season show.

Listen to them on the latest episode of “Quick Start”

“We are actively working on it every day,” Jenkins said in mid-April of bringing season four to viewers who couldn’t afford or chose not to see it in theaters. “I promise you, no one is more frustrated by this than I am. And no one wants to get this to you more quickly than I do. We’re working on it. I promise you.”

Inside the Magic writer Zach Gass wrote that bringing “The Chosen” to Disney+ could be a “tremendous win for Disney’s image” as the platform has been criticized for its less-than-family-friendly content.

“The decision to include ‘The Chosen’ amongst these titles might help win some more conservative subscribers back toward the Mouse,” he wrote, referring to The Walt Disney Company.

The addition of the Bible-based series comes about a month after it was announced Disney+ merged with Hulu, making the 16-year-old streaming platform — over which Disney holds controlling shares — a vertical within the Disney+ apparatus. Subscribers, though, can still access Hulu apart from Disney+.

It’s significant to see “The Chosen” on Disney+ for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact VidAngel — which has since rebranded to Angel Studios and is the original distributor for “The Chosen” — was once caught in the crosshairs of The Walt Disney Company.

In 2016, Disney, along with three other Hollywood studios, filed a copyright infringement complaint against VidAngel, a faith-based company allowing users to filter objectionable language and scenes out of movies and TV shows. At the time, the movie studios argued VidAngel violated copyright law because the company broke encryption codes on DVDs and Blu-ray disks to alter content.

VidAngel said what they did was legal under a carveout provided by the Family Movie Act, which permits the creation of technologies to “sanitize” potentially offensive content on DVDs and streaming entertainment. Ultimately, though, VidAngel was ordered by a Los Angeles jury to pay more than $62 million in damages — $75,000 for each of the 819 films its platform streamed, plus $1 million for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for Faithwire’s daily newsletter and download the CBN News app, to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***