237. How Has ‘The Chosen’ Become The World’s Top Christian-Made Fandom? | with Ryan Swanson
Hi! Wow. Middle of autumn. I know what you’re thinking about. Christmas! This weekend the new comedy The Best Christmas Pageant Ever! releases in theaters. And five Thanksgiving seasons ago, in Nov. 2019, new fans began watching the second half of a new biblical fiction drama called The Chosen. This week, we’re thankful to host one of the three Chosen screenwriters who also cowrote The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!, Ryan Swanson.
Episode sponsors
- Sky Turtle Nova: Rift by Steven James
- Above the Circle of Earth by E. Stephen Burnett
- The Jabin Kainos series by Vince Mancuso
Mission update
- New review of The Time Door by Shannon McDermott
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Concession stand
- Even among our listeners, some may have negative views of this show
- We’ve dealt with many of those in episode 148: Why Do Some Christians Revile ‘The Chosen’? | with Josiah DeGraaf and Jenneth Dyck
- Also, must credit Jenneth Dyck (writer of this article) for this connection!
- We recorded this interview was recorded before big news at ChosenCon.
- Swanson is showrunner for “The Chosen Adventures” animated series.
- If we knew, we would have asked more about this expanded Bibleverse.
- But this chap is good and didn’t give a single indication of this big news.
Introducing guest Ryan Swanson
Head writer and executive producer Ryan Swanson happened to go to high school with Dallas’s wife Amanda (he was her Sadie Hawkins dance date, actually). Several years ago, they got back in touch, Amanda introduced Dallas and Ryan, and the rest is history. All three writers on The Chosen (Ryan, Tyler Thompson, and Dallas) contribute equally, but Dallas and Tyler would be the first to tell you Ryan is the “keeper of the story.” Nothing gets through unless Ryan deems it high enough quality. It must pass the smell test; it must be good storytelling and television. If we have something to include from Scripture or an important spiritual truth to convey, that’s awesome, but Ryan makes sure it “works.” Not by changing it, of course, but by making sure the show and the plot elevate it.
