Contained in the Actual Homestead of Angel Studios’ ’Homestead’ (Unique)

It’s the tip of the world, and Jayson Orvis is aware of it. Better nonetheless: he’s been getting ready for this since 2014.

Orvis is the real-life Ian (performed by Neal McDonough) from the Homestead film produced by Angel Studios (Sound of Freedom). The post-apocalyptic survival movie, which made about $21 million domestically on the field workplace, spurred a day-and-date continuation sequence of the identical identify starring just about everybody from the movie however McDonough — Ian’s in a coma, sorry Jayson.

Orvis has nobody in charge however himself. Homestead the film and its spinoff sequence are primarily based on the Black Autumn books written by Orvis (underneath his pen identify Jason Ross) and his ex-Green Beret collaborator Jeff Kirkham. (Among many different firms, Orvis and Kirkham based Black Rifle Coffee collectively.) The first two episodes of Homestead: The Series are streaming on the Angel app (and have been for a very long time, extra on that later). Season one lastly continues on Wednesday and can run by means of Christmas Day. Beyond that, as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Homestead: The Series has been renewed for a second season. THR can now report Homestead: The Series season two will begin manufacturing on Wednesday.

With Ian sidelined, Homeland: The Series follows ex-Green Beret Jeff Eriksson (performed by Bailey Chase in each the movie and the sequence; he’s mainly Kirkham), who leads his household to Ian’s fortified prepper compound within the Rockies after the detonation of a nuke in Los Angeles devolves the nation into chaos.

From fiction again to truth, Orvis, who says his internet price is within the 9 figures, resides at such a (actual) compound on 300 acres in the identical mountain vary, north of Salt Lake City, Utah. It is Mormon nation, and although Orvis is a lapsed practitioner, he cites the LDS church as the place he first realized to prep for the tip. (They’re nonetheless awaiting the rapture — any day now.)

His spiritual upbringing “flipped into love of the land and agriculture and small landholding homesteading,” Orvis advised THR in an interview that first opened his excessive, strengthened gates to the media.

Orvis’ house will not be fairly the prepper bunker you’re picturing — properly, until you watch Homestead, then it’s precisely as you’re picturing. Orvis’ actual house on the ‘stead is used for the film and television franchise’s inside photographs, and his actual land for the exteriors. The man lives in a super-mansion — this isn’t precisely the place Tina Fey didn’t break Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper).

Some of Orvis’ (very giant) sq. footage is cliché for a doomsday bunker — however not a lot.

“I mean, yes, I have a large structure that has a big underground component in case of nuclear event. But that’s just super unlikely,” Orvis stated. “And I don’t see the advantage … of being underground, isolated from the supplies you would use to create a sustainable community.”

The solely factor(s) Orvis desires underneath floor are his fingers: he and his brother oversee greater than 4 acres of sustainable agriculture, a goat herd, greater than 100 laying chickens, and a big wild deer and elk herd.

Though Orvis does have “a shitload of guns and a shitload of ammo,” he’d far want to shoot, pores and skin and serve the hoofed mammals than those with toes.

A ton of bullets fly in Homestead — in all probability the one factor director Ben Smallbone says he’s dramatized past the pure penalties of a post-apocalyptic America.

“One thing you don’t think about is, in the apocalypse, not only do you need food, do you need water, do you need a way to generate electricity and medical supplies,” Smallbone advised THR, “but you’re going to run out of ammo really, really fast if you have all of those things and people are coming for you.”

When manufacturing stops, the gunplay doesn’t — however Orvis says the weapons coaching on his compound pales compared to they time they spend gardening. He’s prepared for no matter, however prefers what he calls “security through sharing.”

Orvis maintains a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet of 200 “volunteers” invited to maintain our species moving into such a situation. It consists of a variety of particular forces, together with Green Berets, like Kirkham, Navy SEALs and even Afghan refugee commandos. But actually Orvis has extra medical doctors and landscapers than something, and the first standards for making the minimize is enjoying good. Traditional abilities, like steel fabrication and farming, are “super learnable,” Orvis says. I checked and Orvis confirmed: there will likely be no want for a TV Editor post-apocalypse. (There’s barely a necessity for one now.)

Smallbone can be not on the record, which makes our threeway interview a bit awkward.

“Hopefully the apocalypse happens when we’re filming Homestead at the homestead,” Smallbone, who lives on a (a lot smaller) farm in Nashville, Tenn., stated.

As prepped and prepared as his is, Orvis doesn’t truly assume the tip of days is nigh.

“No,” Orvis stated. “I mean, I give it five percent in my lifetime, which is reasonable.”

It is likewise affordable to name Homestead successful: almost one in each eight minutes watched on the Angel app is “tied to Homestead,” per Angel, and the movie and the pair of episodes have been watched for 81 million minutes. The studio says the Homestead franchise “has been directly responsible for acquiring 253,000 new Angel Guild members” previously 11 months alone.

Homestead: The Series had a rocky street getting right here — and never simply due to the terrain. Production on the sequence had accomplished two episodes earlier than snow in Utah triggered a serious delay. It received so unhealthy and lasted so lengthy that Angel Studios needed to re-fund the rest of the episodes, as THR first reported. The quarter-million new Angel Guild members (an actual missed alternative not going with “Angel investors”) certain got here in helpful, although possibly they need to have simply hit Orvis up? (As a matter of truth, the cash flowed the opposite manner: Angel Studios not too long ago acquired possession over the Homestead franchise from Orvis.)

The first two episodes of Homestead: The Series have been obtainable on the Angel app since Dec. 20, 2024. THR can first share the official trailer for the rest of the season — and extra pictures from inside and out of doors Orvis’ compound (beneath the video) — under.