Jesus Saves – And Also Helped A Terrible Weekend At The Box Office

Not to sound like a broken record, but it was, once again, a pretty quiet weekend at the box office. Director Matthew Vaughn's "Argylle" topped the charts with a modest $18 million (which was sadly below industry projections) and, quite frankly, that isn't going to be enough to keep theaters afloat until the slate improves in March. But amid the unfortunate slowness of the weekend, a savior emerged in the form of Jesus. Yes, that very same Jesus. And it's not the first time he's come to the rescue in recent months.

The Chosen Inc. released the first three episodes of "The Chosen" season 4 in theaters over the weekend in partnership with Fathom Events. It paid off: The target audience indeed showed up for the cinematic, episodic look at the life of Jesus Christ, with the release pulling in just shy of $6 million over the weekend. Over its full four days of release, this batch of episodes pulled in $7.3 million. That was good enough to take the number two spot on the charts above Jason Statham's "The Beekeeper" ($5.2 million), which is now in its fourth week of release.

Amazingly, this is not even close to the first time that "The Chosen" has helped prop up the box office. Last year over this very same weekend, the season 3 finale of the show was screened in theaters and pulled in $3.64 million, even as M. Night Shyamalan's "Knock at the Cabin" and "80 for Brady" arrived. To date, the various screenings of the show's episodes have pulled in nearly $40 million at the domestic box office. That's not bad for a show that people can watch from the comfort of home — especially considering that next to no mainstream ad dollars are spent to promote these showings.

The series is billed as "the biggest crowdfunded project in TV history," It is the first-ever multi-season show about the life of Jesus and showcases that story through the eyes of those who knew him. Jonathan Roumie stars as Jesus in the series, which was created by Dallas Jenkins.

Religious-themed films have been a lightning rod for controversy over the last year or so, largely thanks to the release of last year's surprise hit "Sound of Freedom." The movie pulled in an astonishing $249 million worldwide, including a whopping $184 million domestically becoming the unexpected hit of the summer last year. But a lot of those tickets were sold through a "Pay it Forward" program that raised eyebrows. Be that as it may, that was revenue that helped a lot of theaters out, and though not as big, this show's ticket sales were undoubtedly welcome as "The Chosen" accounted for roughly 10% of the total domestic box office this past weekend.

These aren't even the only examples of faith-based programming breaking out in a meaningful way over the past year. Lionsgate's "Jesus Revolution" ($54 million) is another prime example, with "His Only Son" ($13 million) also doing significant business. Individuals may, understandably, have mixed feelings about this programming itself, but there is no denying that it can be a big help to theaters at uncertain times. Theaters need something to help bring out moviegoers, and Jesus Christ certainly seems to do the trick.

We spoke about this and the rest of the weekend's box office numbers on the latest episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

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