Jesus Film 2.0

The Jesus Film is an amazing evangelistic success story. Since its first run in 1976, the film has been translated into 1026 languages and is estimated to have been viewed over 6 billion times. Statistics like those led the New York Times to declare that the Jesus Film is the most watched film in history. What is even more amazing is that the Jesus Film project states that they have recorded over 220 million decisions for Christ at live showings.

I have personally witnessed the power of the Jesus Film in one of my trips to Brazil. We had a movie showing in the town square where people just walking by began to gather to watch the movie. At the end of showing, the missionary gave a very brief discussion of the film and then offered an invitation. That a large number of people responded to the invitation.

But in spite of that success, the people behind the Jesus Film project are trying to evaluate how they can reach the next generation. While recordings have been made in the various translation languages, no new filming has been done in 30 years.

Instead of reshooting everything, the people behind the project are thinking of reworking the film as an Japanese animation project. What they say they need now is your input. Below is a concept video of the direction they are intending to go.




You can help the producers by completing a survey here.

So, what do you think? How do you feel about the style? Does the anime work for you? Should they re-record the voices? Should they reshoot the entire film with new actors?