‘The King of Kings’ Achieves a Holy Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score -

Despite facing competition from all three installments of The Chosen‘s fifth season this past weekend, The King of Kings exceeded expectations to deliver a record-breaking debut. It beat The Prince of Egypt‘s decades-old benchmark, and delivered the biggest-ever opening weekend haul for an animated biblical film. The King of Kings grossed almost $20 million domestically in its first three days of release, thanks mainly to a devoted audience that has let its appreciation be known. The King of Kings has now achieved an impressive stamp of approval on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, barely a few days into its run.

It is now “verified hot” according to the platform, on the basis of its excellent 98% audience score. It doesn’t matter that its official critics’ score is languishing at a barely “fresh” 64%. The animated movie is speaking to its audience, and they seem to be interested in hearing it out. The movie will likely continue to do well in the next few days, at least until Easter. It’ll ultimately generate more money at the domestic box office than all three installments of The Chosen: Last Supper combined. Currently, the fifth season of the biblical series has grossed over $35 million, pushing the franchise’s total collections past the $100 million mark.

Like The King of Kings, all three chapters of The Chosen: Last Supper have been embraced by audiences. Barring the third installment, which holds a 98% audience score, the other two installments continue to hold near-perfect 99% ratings. Faith-based audiences tend to be vocally supportive of projects that cater directly to them. The King of Kings also became one of only around 120 movies in history to earn a perfect A+ CinemaScore from opening day audiences. Fewer animated movies have earned this achievement, and the number decreases even further when you count only the non-Pixar titles.

‘The King of Kings’ Earned a Perfect A+ CinemaScore

Like The Prince of Egypt, which grossed over $100 million domestically back in 1998, The King of Kings features a star-studded cast of voice actors. Oscar Isaac voices Jesus, while Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamill, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Griffin Davis, Ben Kingsley, and Forest Whitaker round out the rest of the cast. Directed by Seong-ho Jang, The King of Kings is playing in theaters. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.