Dallas Jenkins Explains How God Used His Past to Prepare Him for THE CHOSEN
By Movieguide® Contributor
Dallas Jenkins recently opened up about how God prepared his heart for decades before he finally found success through THE CHOSEN.
Jenkins has desired to be a filmmaker since he was young. After college, he was given an opportunity to help adapt his father’s “Left Behind” books for the screen. Starting as a secretary, he worked his way up during production. However, just before the movie began shooting, he left.
With the support of his father and the resources given to him through his successful series, Jenkins began work on a movie about a football team with faith elements.
“[My father and I] noticed that there’s a lot of people in Hollywood talking about making movies. Especially in the faith world, there was a lot of, like, faith-based filmmakers who were saying we’re developing, we’re trying to get this actor…but there wasn’t a lot of movies actually being made,” Jenkins said.
So, Jenkins and his father just got started with a project and created their football movie. Warner Bros. picked up the movie for distribution, and while it did not go to theaters, it ended up as a widely distributed DVD.
This success from his first movie gave Jenkins a foot into the entertainment industry and enabled him to begin working on more and more projects. Eventually, he got picked up to lead a project that had the backing of multiple award-winning producers, and his future in the industry seemed bright.
However, at this time, Jenkins lost sight of God. He was still saying that he wanted to be successful so he would have a platform to share the Gospel, but in his heart, he knew he was in it for his own vanity.
“I was really looking for that success,” Jenkins explained. “Validation. Legitimacy. I was doing an independent film, you know, outside of the system and you know I’m like, ‘Well, this is fine but eventually I want to be taken seriously and taken seriously means awards and you know box office [success]. That’s what’s going to legitimize me in the eyes of the world and I really care deeply about that.”
Jenkins was given his shot, but the project he created with the award-winning producers ended in complete failure, leaving Jenkins with seemingly no future in the entertainment industry.
Deseret News reported, “It got a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with critics calling it ‘lifeless as a comedy’ and ‘designed for believers.’”
Amidst this failure, Jenkins began to question whether he was ever meant to be a filmmaker. Though he had felt it was a divine calling in the past, he began to question if he misheard God.
“In that moment, God then laid it on my wife’s heart the story of the feeding of the 5,000,” Jenkins said. “She didn’t know why, but she decided to read the feeding of the 5,000 and so we read that together. We’re trying to figure out what we could glean from it and in that moment, we thought, ‘Oh, here’s what’s interesting, Jesus is the reason those people were so hungry. He brought them to the place where they needed a miracle. He’d been talking for 3 days; it was his fault they were so hungry.’”
“I know what He’s going to do,” Jenkins recalls thinking. “He’s going to do a miracle. He’s going to turn these box office numbers around. He’s going to multiply. He’s going to do this math. He’s going to do what He does and tonight we’re going to be able to tell this story to all those Godless people in Hollywood who have never seen anything like this before. That night, the [box office] numbers got even worse.”
“It was like God was saying, ‘That’s not what I have for you. That’s not the lesson of that story,’” Jenkins added.
The next morning, Jenkins received a Facebook message from a random person telling him it’s not his job to feed the 5,000, only to provide the fish.
This changed everything. Jenkins realized that his attitude had changed, and he had made success his idol. Rather than making movies for God’s glory, he was working for his own fame. At that moment, Jenkins gave his career back to God. He committed himself to creating the best five loaves and two fish that he could but left the miraculous feeding of the five thousand to the Lord.
It was this refocusing that allowed Jenkins to work on projects that truly glorified God, eventually leading to the creation of THE CHOSEN.
“I can genuinely say this, I know it’s not just a platitude, I genuinely want this [THE CHOSEN] to make Jesus known,” he told the Christian Post. “I want people to know Jesus better after watching the show. If that happens, that’s success. I genuinely have gotten to a place in my career and in my life [where] like I said, it’s not my job to feed the 5,000.”
Movieguide® previously reported:
Due to the unprecedented success of THE CHOSEN, creator and director Dallas Jenkins has been recognized as one of the most influential showrunners in all of Hollywood.
Every year, the Hollywood Reporter creates a list of the most influential showrunners in Hollywood, and Dallas Jenkins landed a spot within the top 15.
“The man behind THE CHOSEN may have launched his Bible series outside the system, but Hollywood has since swooped in. In fact, the most successful crowdfunded TV series of all time is now available not only on a cadre of independent apps – where it’s been watched 600 million-plus times – but also on Peacock, Amazon Prime Video and The CW,” the Hollywood Reporter said of Jenkins.
“A full-blown phenomenon in many corners of Christian culture, the faith-based drama created and directed by Jenkins has spawned best-selling books, DVDs and loads of merchandise…Lionsgate, which distributes THE CHOSEN globally, had already lined up the suddenly red-hot Christian filmmaker to adapt THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER for film,” the outlet continued.
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