Jesus Film Project and Premise Entertainment have announced a new animated take on the 1979 Biblical motion picture Jesus, slated for global release in 2025. Utilizing state of the art animation technology, the project combines the talents of entertainment industry veterans and the expertise of archaeologists and theologians to transport audiences back to Jesus’ time.
Director Dominic Carola has been in the animation industry for 30 years. After working at Disney feature animation on films including The Lion King, Mulan and Lilo & Stitch, he founded Premise Entertainment and has overseen many projects as a partner studio with Disney, Universal, DreamWorks and others.
“I’ve had the privilege of working on many films and projects, and this is, by far, the most meaningful and impactful,” Carola shared. “It’s an honor to bring this film to life with such an exceptional team. We’re leaning into classic elements from the Golden Age of Illustrators with an aim for a beautiful film to match its story content.”
Jesus is produced by Ray Aguerrevere and Stuart Lowder, and written by Barry Cook (Mulan). Other key team members are head of production Jason Fricchione (Ice Age franchise), line producer Tracey Dispensa (How to Train Your Dragon), VFX supervisor John Helms (Star Wars franchise), production designer Armand Serrano (Big Hero 6) and lead editor Lauren Stevens (Spies in Disguise).
The Jesus Film Project produced the original 1979 live-action movie Jesus, and has distributed it for over 40 years. The record-breaking film has been translated into more than 2,000 languages, watched by billions of people worldwide. Now, a new animated translation will bring the millennia-old story to a younger generation with a fresh visual interpretation.
“As we embark on making this unique global film for a global audience, I continue to be amazed by the award-winning talent and team that is coming together to create this film and the immersive digital experience to follow,” said producer Ray Aguerrevere. “For me, the most exciting aspect is the way that we will be able to redeploy these assets from the Jesus animated film to create experiences accessible on various platforms including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and the emerging Metaverse.”
asj.jesusfilm.org | premiseentertainment.com
first published on Animation Magazine