A new TV series, House of David, charting the early life of King David has been released on Amazon Prime. The eight-episode series, produced by The Wonder project, charts David’s story from his anointing as God’s chosen king by Samuel through to his defeat of Goliath.
Forbes magazine reports that the series has “with zero social media chatter...quickly become a big hit” and was even at number two in the Amazon Prime streaming chart in the US on 10 March.
Series Director Jon Erwing, who has previously worked on other faith-related projects including I Can Only Imagine (2018) and I Still Believe (2020) with his brother Andrew, had initially assumed that the series would be produced independently.
However, he was pleasantly surprised that Amazon saw their audience “with this kind of legitimacy,” prompting the streaming giant to provide them with significant resources while still giving them creative control of the series.
This decision is perhaps further emphasised by the news that the latest series of The Chosen, which follows the earthly life of Jesus, will be exclusively released by Amazon this summer, with viewing figures of shows like these seemingly boosted not just by Christians, but also by people simply looking for compelling TV to watch.
Lesser-known Egyptian actor Michael Iskander headlines the series, playing King David, and its cast boasts several well-known TV names, including Ali Suliman as King Saul, Ayelet Zurer as Queen Ahinoam and Stephen Lang as Samuel.
Erwin revealed that the show’s story predominantly follows David’s life through three chapters of 1 Samuel, with additional material coming from Psalms.
You can also read our review: House of David? House of dullness, sadly.
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