The odyssey of Dallas Jenkins' The Best Christmas Pageant Ever begins in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY – The year was 1988, and Utah native Darrin McDaniel was directing and producing a stage play at the Brickyard Playhouse in Salt Lake City. The theater decided to present a performance of “The Best Christmas Pageant”.

McDaniel was not saved Book by Barbara RobinsonBut when he did, he was mesmerized.

“It was just magical that you could take something like a spectacle and open it up for outsiders to experience it,” McDaniel said. So he contacted Robinson and chased the rights for years—until he got them.

Little did he know that after Robinson sold him the rights, directors who had yet to make a name for themselves in Hollywood would call him over the years asking him to direct the film. The director was Dallas Jenkins. McDaniel didn't really pay much attention to him—he had offers from major Hollywood studios on the table, and he was pursuing them instead.

That all changed in the years since McDaniel and his producing partner Chet Thomas watched “The Chosen One.”

The end of the story is now clear, as Jenkins' version of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” produced by McDaniel and Thomas, opens in theaters nationwide this weekend. But it didn't start out that way.

Jenkins has since opened up about how he dreamed of making the film. Years ago, his wife came home with Amanda Robinson's book and they read it with their children. It was then that Jenkins knew he wanted to direct a movie version of the book, so he spent years chasing down producers. When they finally said yes, it was the answer to his prayers.

“I can't believe it sometimes, because I've been pursuing rights for 20 years,” Jenkins said.

But he also said that the film is no longer his. “These are my 'five and two,'” he said, “five loaves and two fishes”—offering God as he could. “It's the best I can do. I love the film, I'm proud of it, but I leave it to God.”

Jenkins sees the story of “The Chosen” as the mother of one of the producers of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”, which leads them to agree to allow him to make the film. But now McDaniel and Thomas are telling their side of the story.

They don't have time

McDaniel and Thomas arrived at the Deseret News offices in downtown Salt Lake City, bundled up against the cold. The day they moved in, there was snow on the ground in the Park City neighborhood where Thomas lived. The night before, they had been to a screening of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” with their friends and family, and they were ecstatic that their decades of effort had finally paid off.

“We wanted it on our schedule,” Thomas said. “God has done this in his time.”

“Thank heaven!” McDaniel exclaimed, saying that if the film had been commissioned sooner, he didn't think it would have turned out the way it did.

From 1988 to the present, the film has been made almost several times, McDaniel said.

McDaniel said he was drawn to the book because it “has such a broad palette, it's beyond the Christian market.” McDaniel thought it was something special, given the American setting and the way the book reveals how the Herdman kids were mischievous.

“The play sold out every night, and then I immediately started chasing the rights,” said McDaniel, referring to the 1988 Salt Lake City staging of the play. He developed a relationship with Robinson and finally, in 2001, he said he secured the rights.

As soon as he had the rights, he began looking for a partner to help produce the film. He wanted to work with Gerald Molen (“Schindler's List,” “Jurassic Park,” and “The Meg”), but couldn't be contacted. At least not until he realized he was driving from Los Angeles to Utah and Molen lived in Las Vegas.

McDaniel used the directory to find Molen's phone number and called him at home. Not long after, McDaniel, Thomas and Molen were collaborating on the film. Robinson was still alive at the time and they would get feedback from her during the process.

Feeling it was the “perfect partnership,” the group decided to make the film with Walden Media. Walden had done movies like “Chronicles of Narnia,” so it seemed appropriate. Variety reported that Walden acquired the rights to the feature in 2010 and, as of 2012, attached director Andy Fickman.

You may know Fickman as the director of “She's the Man,” “The Game Plan,” “Race to Witch Mountain” and “Young Again.”

As the development process continued, McDaniel and Thomas said they moved away from the book and became more professional. “We were making movies, so we were kind of convinced that this was the right direction,” Thomas said. Even big-name actors are attracted, which makes them think we are moving in the right direction.

But the film didn't get made – the reason has been changing over the years. After that, the Corona epidemic spread.

“In all the madness, Walden forgot to renew the option,” Thomas said. At the time, McDaniel and Thomas said they felt they were off track and wanted to go in a different direction. So, they went through their Rolodex of Hollywood contacts and got deals on the table—with the biggest names in the business.

Crossroads

They were ready to sign the contract. But Thomas said the direction they were going in felt like they were taking Christ out of the movie. And they didn't want to.

Both McDaniel and Thomas said they were believers — and ultimately, they decided, they wanted to keep the Christian themes at the heart of the book intact. That was more important than professionalism, he decided.

As they negotiated deals and figured out what direction they wanted to go with the film, Jenkins called at least once a year for more than 10 years, Thomas said. Recalling the first call he received, Thomas said Jenkins told him he wanted to direct it and that he loved it more than life. For several years, it didn't feel like it was the right decision to bring him on the project.

But while the option wasn't renewed, McDaniel and Thomas said Jenkins' star was on the rise thanks to his work on “The Chosen.” People were “binging Jesus” (as the show says) during the pandemic. Then he started thinking differently. It was McDaniel whose mother asked him to watch the show — “I found myself crying several times.”

“Why don't we do the risky thing and get Dallas on board because he has a following of 'The Chosen,'” Thomas said, considering raising the financing himself. They were having some trouble making the pitch to the studio.

So, they had a choice – do they go with the big studio and not Jenkins? Or do they take a chance on Jenkins and keep buying? McDaniel and Thomas felt it was the right decision to go with Jenkins.

At the time they made the decision, McDaniel said he knew he had a small budget to make the film, but he wanted Jenkins.

McDaniel said Jenkins' true talent is in adapting characters in unique ways. When Jesus was going up to preach the Sermon on the Mount, he pointed to a scene from “The Chosen Ones.” “That music starts; I think it's the coolest thing ever. It was like a Quentin Tarantino moment,” he said.

Thomas and McDaniel decided that Jenkins could do the same with “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”. Jenkins was excited when they told him. And he joked that he might finally pull out his calendar reminders to pray about directing the film and call them about it.

Then, a partnership between Lionsgate and Kingdom Story Company opened up an opportunity. “It was a real hybrid,” Thomas said, adding that he felt Lionsgate and Jenkins had a true partnership.

Most importantly for McDaniel and Thomas, they felt Jenkins honored the book and exceeded their expectations and vision for the film.

Beyond what Jenkins did, he said the entire team — costume designer Maria Livingstone, production designer Jean-André Carrier, the entire cast and crew, and especially the actors playing the children — were the right people to make the film. .

Read more at Deseret.com.