The Chosen creator Dallas Jenkins has announced that the shows relationship with Angel Studios has been dissolved and contract terminated after Angel Studios breached their contract on multiple occasions.
After months of suspense and speculation, the news was disclosed during an update on the release of Season Four, streamed via The Chosen YouTube channel on 30 May.
An emotional Jenkins explained that as Angel Studios’ Pay It Forward model made it more difficult for the series to be sufficiently funded, and as the responsibility to fund the entire project rested solely on The Chosen’s percentage of profits, a new contract was drawn in 2022 to accommodate the need.
Shortly after the agreement, Jenkins believed that Angel breached the contract “to the extent that it should be terminated”.
Angel Studios disagreed with that assessment and Jenkins sought to solve the dispute by engaging a third party arbitrator.
“We wanted to solve this in a Biblical way which was to not make it a public spectacle,” Jenkins said.
“Private arbitration was the only way to do this in a way that didn’t harm the show or the reputation of Jesus and this project.
“On May 28th, we received the arbitrator’s decision and he comprehensively affirmed our position and agreed that the contract had been breached in multiple and material ways which means that the contract is indeed terminated and The Chosen relationship with Angel Studios is effectively over.”
During his announcement, Jenkins addressed some of the “gross misconceptions” that were circulating social media around the legal matter that was made public in mid-March.
These allegations included a law suit between Angel Studios and The Chosen as well as an attempt by Jenkins to part ways for “greed, spite, fame or to go Hollywood”.
“We simply had an arbitrator decide whether or not the contract had been breached and should be terminated,” Jenkins said.
“Please when it comes to our social media discourse we must be better and the mind reading gossip and accusations about motive must stop.
“Angel and The Chosen want this show to reach over a billion people and both of us want the show to be sustainable, we just obviously have significant differences of opinion on how to do that and what our future should be.”
Jenkins reiterated multiple times that he takes no pleasure in this decision and deeply appreciated Angel Studios for their immeasurable role in helping launch the show.
“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 their company,” Dallas said.
“They introduced me to my founding partner Daryl Eves 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.”
With the legal matter resolved, Dallas announced that Season 4 will launch on The Chosen social pages and app on Sunday, United States Eastern Standard Time, with two episodes being released per week on Thursday and Sunday nights.