Call it divine intervention: Despite the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, The Chosen will continue filming its upcoming fourth season after receiving an official exemption from the union.
On July 13, the official Chosen Twitter account shared that they would be shutting down production.
“Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we will not be granted an exemption in time to avoid a shutdown. We will film scenes that don’t involve our cast and hope for either a swift end to the strike (unlikely) or a granted exemption so we can resume filming. It’s disheartening and costly, but we have faith in divine intervention.”
Director Dallas Jenkins also took to his personal Instagram account to make a heartfelt plea to SAG-AFTRA.
“Dear @sagaftra, we’ve submitted all the requested paperwork immediately,” Jenkins wrote. “We fit all qualifications for an exemption. You have our application for it. Every day that goes by without your response costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars while your actors are stuck in Utah. We’re the good guys; we’ve treated your actors well. Please take the few minutes to approve our application so your actors can get back to work getting paid for the last two weeks of a season they want to finish.”
SAG-AFTRA recently announced that they would grant exemptions to independent productions willing to sign “interim agreements” with the union. These agreements would involve an 11 percent wage increase for actors, which represented SAG-AFTRA’s final counteroffer in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). However, micro-budget projects may have different terms outlined in their interim agreements. These independent productions must remain unaffiliated with any companies associated with the AMPTP and will retroactively adopt the contract terms achieved with the AMPTP once the strike is resolved.
While these interim agreements primarily target independent films, The Chosen poses an interesting case. Although its first three seasons were independently crowdfunded, the recent licensing deal with Lionsgate, which brought the show to the CW, left them in uncharted territory. Deadline.com suggests that the licensing deal may only apply to the initial three seasons and not the ongoing production of the fourth. The series is distributed by Angel Studios and operates independently by funding multiple productions through crowdfunding.
However, The Chosen announced on Sunday that they had received the exemption and obtained a much-needed waiver. The show will proceed with shooting its fourth season.
