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Fox News Media announced Wednesday it is releasing a new podcast called the Life Of Jesus However, the project isn’t as straightforward as it sounds.
The audio series is slated for 52 episodes and, according to its website, is an “immersive audio experience” of the New Testament.
The website 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 for stars such as Bell and Cox told Rolling Stone they didn’t even know the podcast was happening until Fox shared news of the project this week.
“Brian recorded audio for a project over a decade ago,” a representative for Cox told Rolling Stone. “He was unaware that the audio would be repurposed for a new podcast series in 2025.”
Bell’s representative told Rolling Stone that the actor “never gave permission for the old audiobook to be repurposed into a new podcast series.”
As unbelievable as this situation might sound, it seems to be possible because the podcast isn’t made of entirely new, original material. The performances by the aforementioned actors appear to be from a 2010 audiobook recording of the New Testament, called The Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible.
Fox News Audio has licensed the recording “with full co-operation and participation by all the actors involved,” a Fox News spokesperson told Rolling Stone. Originally a 23-hour audiobook, Fox says the podcast will be 30-minute episodes, with Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt voicing introductions for the episodes. It’s slated to launch on Nov. 30.
WATCH | Brian Cox records as the voice of God for The Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible:
In an interview with CBC News, Vulture culture critic Nicholas Quah said the concept of an audiobook being segmented into episodes isn’t entirely new, pointing to examples from popular audio storytelling platform Audible.
“In that situation,” he said, “it’s not as complicated because the entire process was agreed upon from the beginning.”
With Fox’s Bible podcast, however, there are a lot more questions than answers at the moment about what it might mean to resurrect archival audio material for podcast purposes.
“The notion of actually buying the license or buying the intellectual property of an old audiobook that was produced way, way back when, and releasing it today, that is actually not super common…. It seems to be we’re in the middle of a legal grey area,” Quah said.
Given the conflicting narratives from Fox and the actors involved, Quah said people in the industry should think twice before starting on a similar project.
“It’s not good business practice to do this without actual full, enthusiastic participation,” he said. “Actors should not feel like they are being — that their likenesses and their work is being used in a way that’s non-consensual.”
As for what else the industry might take away from this otherwise, Quah said it could come down to one thing.
“The lesson here probably would be: how strong are your contracts?”
