Produced in Cape Town, the biblical animated musical David is being released in 44 international markets, has passed six million YouTube views for its trailers, and is being called “the best animated film of 2025” in five-star reviews.
US presales have topped $6 million (R102 269 705). That outpaces any previous Angel Studios release, including The King of Kings, which had the biggest opening weekend in the US of any biblical animation ever.
Ahead of its South African and US release on December 19 2025, we spoke to creator, director and executive producer Phil Cunningham, who was born in Zimbabwe but is now based in Cape Town, South Africa. He’s also responsible for Africa’s first animated feature film and a YouTube channel that has had over seven billion views.
When did you first have the idea for a movie about David?
For me, the story started 30 years ago, canoeing down the Zambezi River. You could canoe for four days, five nights. You wouldn’t see a human being. While I was out there, I just fell in love with adventure, with expansiveness. It was incredible, just looking up at the thunderstorms, the elephant, the buffalo, a charging lion.
At the same time, I was reading David’s story and I loved it. His life is just packed with adventure, with music, with fun. I found it so inspiring, the way he lived, taking on a giant, and lions and bears.
In the book of Acts, God says, I found in David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. I was like: “Wow, imagine if we could make a movie about David. It would give us a glimpse of God’s own heart. It could inspire a generation.”
At that stage, we weren’t even in the film business, but that’s where the vision for David was birthed.
Adaptations are always controversial, because movies are different to books, so require changes, which fans don’t always appreciate. This one must have been even more challenging than usual, because you were adapting the Word of God?
Yes, making a movie like David is an incredible privilege and an incredible challenge, because your source material is the Bible.
If you take comic book fans, they love their heroes and their worlds, so you can’t take Superman’s cape and put it on Spider Man, or you’re really going to upset the comic book fans. It’s the same in the faith community — at an even greater level.
So as we made this movie, we made every effort to make sure we built it off a well-researched and biblical base. Of course, we wanted it to be fun, entertaining and full of adventure, but not at the expense of authenticity. So we’ve made every effort to try and make this movie connected and rooted in its biblical text.
As an example, we did multiple trips as big teams to Israel. There’s this beautiful principle at Disney: “People won’t always see the detail, but they’ll feel the detail.” And so every frame of this movie is packed with detail, with Easter eggs, and we hope, as people watch this, they’ll feel that.
Why make David as a musical?
David is a musical because he was genuinely a musician, and we really wanted to build that part of him into the fabric of the movie. He was authentically one of the world’s greatest songwriters and musicians, who’s credited with nearly half the Psalms in the Bible.
And I do love music when it authentically fits, because music just gives you access to the soul and the spirit of a story in a way that a non-musical movie can’t. People are going to be moved and inspired by the songs in the film.
One of the most moving parts of the film is David’s relationship with his mother, Nitzevet.
Yes, David is a movie that champions mothers. It was inspired by my own mother. She was the most incredible human being. When we were 14 years old, she was like: ‘Phil, by your age, David was fighting Goliath, Daniel was in the lion’s den. What are you doing with your life? Get out there. Step out. Take a risk. Have an adventure.”
I remember that so clearly.
In the Psalms, David says to God: “I serve you as my mother did.” I love that, because that’s a very clear indication that his mother had a massive impact on his life. And his great-grandmother was Ruth, so the women in his life had a huge part to play in who he became and the kind of leader he was.
So often in movies, mothers are stereotyped into a protective corner. And of course, that’s an element of being a mother, but mothers do so much more than that. They inspire the world. They inspire generations. So we really wanted this movie to speak to that.
It’s been 30 years since you first had the idea of a movie about David. What have you learnt in the process?
Sometimes you have a dream, you have a calling, you have a vision, and then it just seems to go south. You seem to end up in the desert.
Look at three people in the Bible. Joseph has a dream, then goes off to slavery and to prison. Moses has a calling and is then off to the desert for 40 years. David has an anointing as a king, and he’s off to the wilderness for seven years.
So I really want to encourage people: if you are reading this and you’ve had a dream, and it seems that you’re in a wasteland or a wilderness, hang in there, because God has got a beautiful way of building humility and really preparing you, so that when that dream does come true, it’s all about God and not about you.
What do you hope audiences will take away from the film?
David, as we know, was far from perfect, like all of us. We are all flawed; we all make mistakes. But what we love about David is that he held nothing back. When he was full of joy, he spoke it out. When he was full of fear, or anxious, or had questions, he voiced that. You’ll see in the movie, there’s a big moment where he questions God, and he says: ‘Why God?’ And I just love that, because it gives us permission as humans not to sanitise our approach to God, just to talk out our fear, our hope, our joy, our concerns. And David’s story is an amazing example for us to look at and say: “Wow, you can be that real, that honest, and just live that wholeheartedly.” You don’t have to be perfect; David is an incredible example just to live with all your heart and leave nothing on the track.
At Sunrise, as a studio, our whole mission is to inspire through story. So that’s our passion behind David: that people would walk out, no matter what walk of life they’re coming from, inspired to take on the giants in their life.
And at a deeper level, we really believe that David’s story will give audiences a glimpse of God’s own heart. This beautiful heart that is expansive, full of adventure, joy and kindness, not boring, not dull, not austere.
Book now via Ster Kinekor. Nu Metro bookings open soon.
SA / Affrica cinema lineup
Empire Entertainment is distributing David in South Africa. It will screen at the following cinemas from Friday December 19:
Cape Town
• Blue Route (Ster-Kinekor)
• Canal Walk (Nu Metro)
• Cape Gate (Ster-Kinekor)
• N1 City (Ster-Kinekor)
• Somerset (Ster-Kinekor)
• Tyger Valley (Ster-Kinekor)
• V&A Waterfront (Ster-Kinekor)
• Westgate (Nu Metro)
Gauteng
• Carnival City (Ster-Kinekor)
• Clearwater Mall (Nu Metro)
• Cradlestone (Ster-Kinekor)
• Cresta (Ster-Kinekor)
• Eastgate (Ster-Kinekor)
• Fourways (Ster-Kinekor)
• Hyde Park (Nu Metro)
• Irene Mall (Ster-Kinekor)
• Menlyn Park (Nu Metro)
• Montecasino (Movies@Montecasino)
• Sandton (Ster-Kinekor)
• The Glen (Nu Metro)
• The Grove Mall (Ster-Kinekor)
• The Zone Rosebank (Ster-Kinekor)
• Wonderpark (Ster-Kinekor)
Garden Route
• Garden Route Mall (Ster-Kinekor)
Hermanus
• Road House Cinema at Whale Coast (independent cinema in Hermanus)
Gqeberha
• Baywest (Ster-Kinekor)
KZN
• Ballito (Nu Metro)
• Midlands (CineCentre)
• Shelly Beach (Ster-Kinekor)
• Suncoast (CineCentre)
• The Pavilion (Nu Metro)
East Africa
• Century Pictures cinemas in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
Namibia
• Atlanta (independent cinema in Swakopmund)
• The Grove Mall Namibia (Ster-Kinekor)
Zimbabwe
• Road House at Sam Levy
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