Twenty-five years after premiering on the silver screen, the “Jesus” film has debuted online – in hundreds of languages.
The 2-hour docudrama, released to theaters in 1979 by Warner Brothers, was later converted to 8mm, 16mm and 35mm print formats by the Campus Crusade for Christ ministry and shown throughout the world in churches and remote villages. The Jesus Film Project’s mission has been to take the film ‘near to where they live.’ At some 5 billion showings, it is the world’s most watched movie.
Now, the potential audience is almost unlimited.
The Internet version can be viewed in any of 300 languages, representing more than 90 percent of those spoken in the world.
“Now with the Internet, ‘near to where they live’ is the closest computer,” Mike Waid of the Jesus Film Project told Focus on the Family.
The goal of the project is to have more than 800 translations online.
