After Martin Scorsese saw success with a run of acclaimed films leading up to his first Oscar winner “Raging Bull” in 1980, the director thought he could take some time to pursue a topic that fascinated him since childhood.
“I thought why not go to the stories of saints?” Scorsese said at a recent panel discussion in New York. At the time, Scorsese saw Italian directors doing nonfiction takes on scholarly subjects for television and wanted in.
“I tried,” he said. “And I wound up getting sucked into making movies again.”
But deferred dreams never die in the streaming era, where emerging platforms are hungry for content that can put them on the map. Forty-four years after first considering the concept, “Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints” makes its debut Sunday on Fox Nation, the streamer owned and operated by Fox News Media, the conservative-leaning Fox News Channel’s parent organization.
Scorsese is executive producer and on-camera narrator of the series, which was created by Matti Leshem and written by Kent Jones.
A new episode debuts weekly with the first four providing critical looks at Joan of Arc, John the Baptist, Sebastian and Maximilian Kolbe. A second set is scheduled to launch around the Easter season in April 2025 with portrayals of Francis of Assisi, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene and Moses the Black.
Scorsese has been drawn to saints since his days growing up in Lower Manhattan in the 1940s and 50s. He attended elementary school at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mott Street, where he was surrounded by the iconography of the Catholic Church.
“These statues almost became like people,” Scorsese said. “And I wanted to know their stories.”
“The Saints” examines its subjects as human beings, flaws and all, in dramatizations that have the kind of cinematic feel viewers expect from a Scorsese project. (The two episodes screened for the press were filmed in Serbia and on a New York set that Scorsese had a hand in decorating.)
Each episode contains a panel discussion with Scorsese and theological scholars and experts. They indulge in the kind of low-key thoughtful discussion rarely seen on TV or streaming.
The high-minded series does not feel commercial, which may explain why it was not snapped up by Apple TV or Netflix, the other streamers who have backed Scorsese’s work (“Killers of the Flower Moon” and “The Irishman,” respectively). The project, developed by Scorsese and Lionsgate Alternative Television, was shopped for two years before Fox Nation signed on.
But “The Saints” is seen as a stature-building fit for Fox Nation, which reportedly has 2 million subscribers paying $5.99 a month. The service has added more religious-themed programming to its mix in an effort to reflect values held by many Fox News viewers.
“We have a very passionate audience, and we understand them very well,” said Jason Klarman, Fox News Media’s chief digital and marketing officer. “And they’re giving us the permission to do things for them that news organizations don’t normally do.”
Scorsese is the latest and most prominent entertainment industry figure to produce for Fox Nation, which launched in 2018. The service started getting noticed by more Hollywood types after Kevin Costner signed on for a 2022 documentary series tied to the 150th anniversary of Yellowstone National Park.
“We started to field a lot of calls from people who had some really interesting passion projects,” Klarman said.
Earlier this year, actor Matthew McConaughey narrated “Deep in the Heart,” a documentary about wildlife in his native Texas. Kelsey Grammer, Dan Ackroyd, Rob Lowe and Dennis Quaid have all been involved with programs for the service. (Fox Nation has also provided a platform for stars such as Roseanne Barr, some of whom have fallen out of favor in Hollywood due to their support for President-elect Trump).
While Fox News commentators will often take shots at entertainment industry liberals, the flagship network’s stance has not been an impediment to doing business on its streaming channel.
“We’re not chasing anybody and going, ‘Oh, please do business with us.’” said Klarman.
Fox Nation originally launched with programs featuring some of the more strident conservative commentators that showed up on Fox News. One show was called “Un-PC.” A dramatized mock trial of Hunter Biden — pulled earlier this year after President Biden’s son filed a lawsuit — was also offered.
But Fox News executives found that viewers were already getting enough political content on the channel and elsewhere.
“There was a certain ceiling to that,” said Klarman. “We went beyond sort of the core Fox News fan, and went to people who were adjacent.”
Klarman noticed how Fox Nation programs on religion, patriotism, history and nature were strong performers. Faith-based shows did particularly well around Christmas and Easter.
“The Saints” is the most expensive project Fox Nation has done according to Klarman, who declined to reveal the cost. The episodes are formatted for traditional TV and are being sold to overseas broadcasters, which will help finance a series that might otherwise be too expensive for a small streaming service.
Fox News parent Fox Corp. does not break out financials for Fox Nation, which is the company’s only subscription video on demand service.
Executives remain patient with it as they navigate through consumers’ shift away from pay-TV subscriptions, which provide a majority of the channel’s revenue. They have told Wall Street analysts that Fox Nation could eventually be the direct-to-consumer streaming portal that brings viewers Fox News content in the future.