It’s one of the oldest stories ever told, but “Fathom Entertainment — an unprecedented move for an entire season of television, in the case of season 4. But the unconventional strategy paid off handsomely, with Fathom grossing $72 million to date through the two “The Chosen” seasons, plus a Christmas feature. Now preparing to roll out the show’s fifth season, “The Chosen: Last Supper,” starting March 27, the specialty distributor is pulling out all the stops.
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It’s a last rodeo too for Fathom. The fifth season will be the final one distributed by the company, as producers 5&2 Studios and global distributor Lionsgate recently made a deal for U.S. rights with Amazon to stream the final two installments as feature-length films. Any potential theatrical run will be handled by Amazon MGM.
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When the idea first arose to premiere “The Chosen” in theaters instead of on streaming or cable, “People looked at me like I was crazy,” says Fathom Entertainment CEO Ray Nutt. “But we had done our research and we knew the potential.”
The franchise from creator Dallas Jenkins, first financed via crowdfunding, has been a runaway success, with spinoffs including “Bear Grylls’ The Chosen in the Wild” and merch from picture books to framed artworks.
Theatrical presales for Season 5 are twice as high as they were ahead of Season 4, according to Fathom. Nutt predicts final revenues could double too, after “Last Supper” releases over Easter and over. The first two episodes will also premiere in 250 IMAX locations, a first for a Fathom release, with approximately 2,100 locations total.
The challenge of releasing an eight-episode series over three weeks is getting the audience to return for the second two installments. So Fathom decided to make it easier for audiences to catch up with all the episodes.
“We came to the conclusion that doing something on a festival style was the way to go,” says Nutt. The first two episodes will run for a week, with the next three opening a week after, while the first two continue to play. Then for the final three episodes, audiences can watch just the last three or binge all eight. Theaters will offer ticket bundling packages so moviegoers can commit to the full run for a special rate.
Since “The Chosen” episodes are also available at no charge on the show’s app, the theatrical success is particularly notable. (“Binge Jesus,” suggests the homescreen.)
“It’s just amazing to me that people will pay for a movie ticket to go see it. It’s a tribute to the quality of the content,” says Nutt. “The production value is huge. The storytelling is beyond belief. And there’s people from all religions and sectors that come to see this — it’s not just Christians.”
Fathom has established its reputation with an array of programming, from music and opera events to anime to classic film rereleases. But faith-based content is a cornerstone for the 20-year-old distributor, representing 40% of revenue last year. From “The Chosen” to “Between Borders,” the genre contributed to overall revenue growth of 45% in 2024 and 48% growth in 2023 — a rare bright spot in the struggling theatrical business.
Building a reputation in that genre means Fathom can engage with faith-based audiences directly, which is something a lot of distributors would love to be able to do.
“We’ve established a lot of relationships in this particular area on the content side,” says Nutt. “But even more importantly, we’ve established relationships directly with the consumer. We have databases. We have access to people who have gone to see this piece of content.” That helps convince producers that Fathom can access a targeted audience for films from other producers, such as “Carlo Acutis: Roap to Reality,” about the first millennial saint, opening April 27.
Another growing area for the company, which rebranded last year from Fathom Events to Fathom Entertainment, is classic film programming. A new slate of big-screen classics with intros from critic Leonard Maltin will be announced at CinemaCon, Nutt says, following the success of recent retrospective screenings like “The Goonies.”
“You have parents and grandparents now bringing their grandkids to to see a classic movie, an 80-year old or 85-year-old ‘Wizard of Oz’ or whatever it is. You can see a lot of these films on TV and but people really want to go to the movie theater and see how it was originally seen by that original audience,” Nutt says.
Will other TV series follow and try a theatrical release instead of a streaming premiere? Nutt says there have been inquiries, so it’s possible exhibitors could have another new tactic in their quest to keep people going to the multiplex.
