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Fox News Media announced Wednesday that it is releasing a new podcast called Life of Jesus. However, the project is not as simple as it seems.
The audio series is designed for 52 episodes and, according to its data websitepresents an “immersive audio experience” of the New Testament.
The site says the podcast features “more than 100 actors,” including Kristen Bell as Mary Magdalene, Blair Underwood as Mark, Malcolm McDowell as Caiaphas and Brian Cox as God.
However, representatives of such stars as Bell and Cox told Rolling Stone magazine they didn't even know the podcast was coming until Fox shared news of the project this week.
“Brian recorded audio for his project over a decade ago,” Cox's rep told Rolling Stone. “He didn’t know that the audio would be repurposed for a new podcast series in 2025.”
Bell's rep told Rolling Stone that the actor “never gave permission for the old audiobook to be repurposed into a new podcast series.”
As improbable as this situation may seem, it seems possible because the podcast does not consist of completely new, original material. The aforementioned actors' performances appear to be taken from a 2010 New Testament audiobook entitled Theatrical audio Bible “Truth and Life.”
Fox News Audio licensed the recording “with the full cooperation and participation of all actors involved,” a Fox News spokesperson told Rolling Stone. Originally a 23-hour audiobook, the podcast will consist of 30-minute episodes, with Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt narrating the episode intros, Fox said. It is scheduled to launch on November 30.
WATCH | Brian Cox records as the voice of God in the dramatized audio Bible, Truth and Life:
In an interview with CBC News, Vulture culture critic Nicholas Cua said the concept of an audiobook broken down into episodes is nothing new, pointing to examples from the popular audio storytelling platform Audible.
“In this situation,” he said, “it's not that difficult because the whole process was agreed upon from the very beginning.”
However, with Fox's The Bible podcast, there are currently many more questions than answers about what reviving archival audio for podcast purposes might mean.
“The idea of buying a license or intellectual property for an old audiobook that was released a long time ago and releasing it today is not really very common… We seem to be in the middle of a legal gray area,” Cua said.
Given the conflicting versions from Fox and the actors involved, Cua said people in the industry should think twice before pursuing a project like this.
“It’s not good business practice to do this without real full and active participation,” he said. “Actors should not feel like their characters and their work are being used without consent.”
As for what else the industry could have learned from this otherwise, Cua said it could all come down to one thing.
“The lesson here would probably be: How strong are your contracts?”
