What the synopsis leaves out
The synopsis the studios released is a coming-of-age music story. A teenager posts a video of herself singing. The response is large enough that executives in Christian music and country music notice. She then has to live with what that attention does to her family, her friends, and her sense of purpose. Erin Westerman, president of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, called it “the ultimate wish-fulfillment story,” a regular girl who gets one chance to share a gift, with faith as the part that sets her apart.
The book the script is based on is more particular than that summary. Wilson has said she was 15 in 2017 when her brother Jacob, who was 23, died in a car accident, and that her parents asked her to sing at his funeral. She has also described writing “My Jesus” with Matthew West. West is an executive producer on the film, with Jim Miller and Robert Deaton. Kingdom’s own page calls the movie Wilson’s true story. Deadline’s plot summary does not mention the crash. It does assign Casalegno the role of Jacob, and it does say Oyegun’s screenplay comes from the book. The cast list and the source are public. How much of the book’s account of Jacob’s death will be in the movie is not.
The song is the part of the record a chart can confirm. Deadline reported that “My Jesus” topped Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs chart and spent seven weeks at No. 1 on Christian Airplay, and that Wilson was the first female solo artist to lead that airplay chart with a debut single since the chart began in 2003. Her album of the same name received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. Those are the facts the studios are adapting. They are not a release plan.
What Kingdom’s music films have grossed
Kingdom has already turned Christian-music lives into theatrical movies, and the grosses are not one story. I Can Only Imagine, the 2018 film about MercyMe’s Bart Millard, grossed $83.5 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo, against a reported $7 million budget. I Still Believe, about Jeremy Camp, opened on March 13, 2020, as theaters were closing. The Numbers lists its domestic gross at $10.4 million, so that result belongs to the shutdown as much as to the film. Unsung Hero, the story of the Smallbone family, finished around $20 million domestically. I Can Only Imagine 2 opened on February 20, 2026, in 3,105 theaters. The Numbers lists an $18 million production budget and an $18.6 million domestic gross.
A domestic gross near the reported budget is not a profit-and-loss statement. Theaters keep a share of the ticket, and a production budget does not include marketing. It is a statement of scale. The sequel played wide and finished in the neighborhood of its budget. It did not repeat $83.5 million. Kingdom’s larger recent totals have come from films that were not singer biographies. Jesus Revolution grossed $52.1 million domestically. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever grossed $40.0 million. The music lives, after the 2018 breakout, have been the smaller business.
My Jesus is the next film in that music line, and the setup differs from the film that made the company’s name. Andrew Erwin is producing, with Joshua Walsh, Brandon Gregory, and Daryl LeFever. Oyegun is directing. The lead is a working singer playing a singer. Casalegno is the cast member who arrives with a current mainstream series. Kingdom’s extras page also lists Abby Glover, who appeared in I Can Only Imagine 2, among the starring names. The September cast announcement did not give her a role, so that credit is still a name on a casting page.
Esten’s other fall job is already on a calendar. He is in Angel’s Drummer Boy, which premieres at the Grand Ole Opry on November 4 and opens nationwide on November 6, and he plays Cain Ross on Angel’s Homestead series. My Jesus is a different company. It is also the credit that still has no date.
Brandon Gregory, Kingdom’s president, said the company wants a film that “feels fresh, entertaining, and deeply authentic” for an audience that still goes to theaters and talks about faith in public. That is the pitch. The earlier music films show what happened when Kingdom and Lionsgate had a finished movie, a Friday, and a wide booking. This announcement has a cast, a city, and a start. Until someone names the Friday, the theatrical claim is the partnership.
