When David premiered in December 2025, it arrived as something genuinely rare in modern animation: a faith-based musical that wasn’t afraid to be ambitious, earnest, and visually spectacular all at once. Director Phil Cunningham’s vision for this biblical epic turned out to be exactly what audiences were hungry for, even if the film snuck up on many industry observers. The fact that a $60.9 million animated feature with religious themes could accumulate nearly $78 million domestically—and cross $77.7 million globally—speaks volumes about both the film’s quality and a growing appetite for meaningful family entertainment that doesn’t apologize for its convictions.
The Creative Vision Behind the Project
Phil Cunningham brought a distinctly modern sensibility to what could have easily been a stuffy retelling. Instead of leaning into dusty reverence, he partnered with an ensemble cast that understood how to infuse genuine humanity into archetypal characters. Phil Wickham, Brandon Engman, and Asim Chaudhry didn’t just voice their roles—they brought a musicality and emotional depth that justified the film’s subtitle as “a giant musical event.” This wasn’t incidental; the musical dimension became the film’s greatest strength, allowing emotional beats to land with an impact that dialogue alone couldn’t achieve.
What made this collaboration work was how seriously everyone involved took the material without taking themselves too seriously. The runtime of 1 hour and 49 minutes proved perfectly calibrated—long enough to develop genuine stakes and character arcs, yet brisk enough to maintain momentum through elaborate musical sequences. There’s an underrated skill in that kind of editing and pacing, especially in animation where every second costs time and resources.
> “A giant musical event” wasn’t just marketing copy; it was a genuine description of what Cunningham delivered—a film that treated musical theater conventions with the same weight typically reserved for dramatic dialogue.
Box Office Reality and What It Means
Here’s what’s interesting about David’s financial performance: it wasn’t a runaway blockbuster, but it was undeniably profitable and, more importantly, consistent. Opening to $22 million domestically placed it at number two on its debut weekend—respectable, though not explosive. What mattered more was the film’s legs. Week after week, it held theaters and audience interest, eventually reaching that $77.7 million worldwide total. That kind of staying power in the crowded holiday marketplace suggests something crucial: audiences kept coming back, bringing their families, recommending it to friends.
The profitability margin might not seem extraordinary on paper—roughly $17 million in net revenue before accounting for marketing and distribution costs. But context matters here. This was a faith-based animated feature with no franchise recognition, no sequel baiting, no major IP to lean on. Studios like Sunrise Productions, Slingshot USA, Angel Studios, and 2521 Entertainment collectively took a genuine creative risk, and it paid off modestly but meaningfully. In an industry obsessed with $300 million openings and billion-dollar franchises, David proved there’s still an audience for stories told with conviction and artistry.
Why It Resonated
The film’s 7.7/10 rating from critics and audiences tells an honest story. It’s not a masterpiece that’ll reshape animation history, but it’s a good film—earnest, well-crafted, and emotionally engaged. In a landscape where “good” often gets drowned out by spectacle or cynicism, that matters.
What David tapped into was several overlapping audience needs:
- Spiritual hunger without dogmatism—people wanted a film that took faith seriously while remaining dramatically compelling
- Quality family entertainment that didn’t condescend to children or bore adults watching alongside them
- Musical filmmaking at a time when the animated musical format had been somewhat neglected in major releases
- Character-driven storytelling that prioritized emotional truth over action set pieces
The film found its audience precisely because it understood what those audiences actually wanted, rather than assuming what religious or family-film demographics should want.
Cultural Legacy in the Making
By late 2025, David had already established itself as the highest-grossing faith-based animated opening of all time—a record that signals something important about shifting cultural moments. The film proved that religious narratives could be contemporary without being condescending, that animation could serve spiritual storytelling, and that audiences existed for this kind of material if creators approached it with genuine artistry.
The real legacy might not be box office records, though. It’s that David opened doors. Future filmmakers saw that you could mount an expensive animated musical with biblical subject matter and find an audience. Studios recognized that faith-based entertainment didn’t need to be a niche category. And audiences got validation that their interests—for meaningful stories, for spirituality in cinema, for musicals—were worth investing in.
That’s the thing about David that’ll probably outlast its initial theatrical run: it wasn’t just a film that succeeded. It was a film that succeeded because it stayed true to what it was, rather than softening its edges for broader appeal. In a medium often obsessed with lowest-common-denominator storytelling, that kind of integrity becomes almost revolutionary.
