Making the movie “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” has been a “dream come true” for Dallas Jenkins, who co-wrote and directs the upcoming film. Jenkins created the popular series, “The Chosen,” and the first trailer for his new Christmas movie dropped Monday, July 1.
“Between my work with disadvantaged kids, my love of Christmas, my love of comedy, and the fact that I can’t even talk about this story without crying, I couldn’t have survived watching anyone else direct this movie,” Jenkins told People magazine. “It’s the film I was born to make.”
“What’s so special about it,” he explained, “is that it’s funny without being slapstick, emotional without being sappy, and you’ll get the true meaning of Christmas from a church Christmas pageant without it feeling churchy.”
‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ Hits Theaters in November
Dallas Jenkins is the creator, director and co-writer of “The Chosen,” and the show’s fans will notice some familiar faces in his new movie, including Elizabeth Tabish, who plays Mary Magdalene in “The Chosen,” Vanessa Benavente, who plays Mother Mary, and Kirk B.R. Woller, who plays Gaius.
“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” stars Judy Greer (“The Wedding Planner,” “The Village”), Lauren Graham (“Gilmore Girls,” “Parenthood”), and comedian Pete Holmes (“Crashing,” “How We Roll”). The movie is based on Barbara Robinson’s 1972 book of the same name, which has previously been adapted into a play and a teleplay. When Grace (Greer) volunteers to direct her town’s 75th annual Christmas pageant, she is in for a shock when the six Herdman children decide they want to be in it.
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The Herdmans (“absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world”) break people’s windows, set buildings on fire, bully other children, and generally have a notorious reputation.
Grace faces pressure to kick the children out of church for being a bad influence, but the unruly kids have a lesson to teach their community. As Grace says in the trailer, “Jesus was born for the Herdmans as much as he was for us. We’d be missing the whole point of the story if we turned them away.”
Ever since he and his wife, Amanda, first read the book to their children 15 years ago, Jenkins has been trying to get the rights to direct “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.”
“This is a big day,” he said in a video he took on the first day of principal photography for the movie. Jenkins shared that when he first read the book, he “laughed out loud, I cried out loud, I couldn’t read, I was crying so hard.” Jenkins would hand over the task of reading aloud to his wife, and then she would start crying.
“I said, when I finished reading, I have to make this movie,” said Jenkins. But he couldn’t get the rights for a while: “I kept getting told no.”
