Jonathan Roumie plays a leading role in both productions, but he is not the only connection.
Jesus Revolution from the Erwin Brothers - Andrew and Jon - hits theaters nationwide later this week and it got some promotional help last night in a livestream from its friends at The Chosen. That, of course, is the hit streaming show from creator/director Dallas Jenkins about the life of Christ, which put out the final episode of its third season earlier this month.
The livestream featured Jenkins, Jon Erwin and actor Jonathan Roumie, who plays the Jesus character in The Chosen and a hippie street preacher named Lonnie Frisbee in Jesus Revolution. This movie is based on real events that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s in what was the last great revival in America. Frisbee joined forces at the time with a California pastor named Chuck Smith, played by Kelsey Grammer, and helped launch an awakening of faith.
The two directors poked fun at each other in the livestream, because the window between the end of production of the film and the start of production of Season 3 of the show last year was only a few weeks. Jenkins was obviously a bit concerned about getting Roumie back in time to prepare, plus the actor had lost about 25 pounds to play the part of the slightly built Frisbee. He was also not the only staffer from The Chosen attached to the crew of the movie either: Jenkins' cinematographer Akis Konstantakopoulos was shooting Jesus Revolution.
It all worked out in the end and Jenkins got both of his team members on location in time. Relations between him and Erwin are so warm, in fact, that they even hinted in the livestream they may have a joint project coming in the future, though they gave no details.
In an interesting aside, it turns out that the directors have something else in common as well: the parents of each of them were participants in the last big evangelistic event that capped off the aforementioned revival. It was a huge Christian conference - some 250,000 people on hand - called Explo '72 that took place in 1972 in Dallas, TX, which it turns out is why Jenkins' parents decided to name him Dallas.
You can watch that entire livestream via this link to the Facebook page of Jesus Revolution, and we think you will find it interesting. As for the movie, that releases in theaters this Friday, February 24th and the trailer below should whet your appetite.