The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Relevant
For the last four years, Mitch Hudson has had two jobs. One was assistant director on The Chosen, the Bible series he joined in its first season in 2018. The other was a Moses workplace comedy he was making on the side, with money from friends and crew he recruited between setups.
That comedy, The Promised Land, moves to Prime Video in the U.S. on Nov. 15, the same day as The Chosen season six, distributed by Lionsgate. Season one, which Hudson created, wrote and directed, built its audience on YouTube, where every episode has passed 1 million views and the series has logged more than 150 million impressions.
A friend had an idea for a Moses show. Hudson wrote the pilot. When his producers, who are also friends, found they had a little money (not much, he says), Hudson started recruiting from the one place he had access to: the crew of a hit Bible series.
“I was sneaking away, finding crew members in the shadowy corridors of set, just like, ‘Hey, do you wanna help me out with this pilot? I can’t pay you very much, but we can try to make it.’ I was so grateful, because I had been working as a crew member and gotten to know so many people on The Chosen who were then able to come and help me. And I kind of just gave all of it over and was like, all right, if this show happens, it’s God’s. Not to over-spiritualize that, people do that sometimes, but genuinely, I have tried on my own to make stuff. If I’m gonna make this, it’s gonna be with the Lord or it’s not gonna be made, probably.”
[A] piece of advice came from Dallas Jenkins, The Chosen‘s creator, on set during that same stretch.
“He said, ‘I love what you’re doing, and I think it’s a really great idea.’ And he gave me advice I’ve tried to hold on to ever since. He said, you need to meet the faith audience where they are and then push them. You can’t come out of the gate like, ‘I’m gonna do something that’s never been done in faith.’ It can’t just be radical. You’re either with it or you’re not. You have to meet the audience where they are and encourage them into a new direction. And that new direction for The Promised Land is into humor, which is always scary for faith, because usually the joke is on faith. It’s not usually with faith. That’s what makes our show a little bit different.”
Hudson has a test for where the line falls, and he applies it to every joke.
“My line is usually just: what is the joke about? Is it a joke that would make less of God or the things that are in the Bible? Or is it a joke that is poking at what people are like? I essentially put every single joke in the show into that second category. The joke is never on the Lord. The joke is never on the idea of faith. The joke is never, ‘How could someone believe this? This is crazy.’ The joke is all about what people are like in these situations.”
The platform change to Prime Video comes with a trade-off. Season one is leaving YouTube.
“I’ve loved that we’ve been freely available, but having season one focused on Prime helps us get a little more placement as a TV show, especially in people’s minds when they see it on a streamer. And that is a big part of helping us get season two out.”