ALADDIN star and DANIEL AND THE FIERY FURNACE actor-producer Mena Massoud hopes Daniel’s next big-screen challenge will involve a lions’ den, but he says the team has business to settle before moving ahead.
“Creatively, we all want to make it, but we’ve got to sit down and kind of just go by it,” Massoud told The Christian Post of making a sequel.
The opening weekend gave the creative team momentum to build on. The Numbers records a $3,303,548 domestic debut across 1,525 theaters for DANIEL AND THE FIERY FURNACE, which opened Sept. 18 through EKKL Entertainment.
Written and directed by brothers Matthew and Daniel Kooman, the first movie follows Daniel from Jerusalem into exile in Babylon. There, loyalty to God puts Daniel and his friends at odds with the demands of a powerful empire.
The story also follows Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, whose refusal to worship a golden statue brings a death sentence in a blazing furnace. Massoud plays Daniel and actor Elijah Alexander stars as King Nebuchadnezzar; viewers of THE CHOSEN will recognize Alexander as Atticus.
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For Massoud, the connection goes deeper than a familiar Bible story. He told The Christian Post that his childhood in the Coptic Church helped draw him to a project that brought his faith and his acting together.
“So, to get to do it on a professional level was primarily why I wanted to do this,” the actor said of why he wanted to express his faith through his work.
He also connected Daniel’s experience of leaving home with his own move from Egypt to Canada as a child. The circumstances differ, of course, but that experience gave him a personal point of connection with a young man finding his footing in an unfamiliar culture.
The Kooman brothers had already described their interest in continuing the story in a March 26 interview with The Christian Post. They said they focused the first installment on Daniel’s earliest years and the first three chapters of the biblical book, rather than trying to cover his entire life at once.
That earlier conversation matters: the sequel idea predates the theatrical opening. The latest development is Massoud discussing what would need to happen next, with the first movie now in front of audiences.
The actor also sees a timely challenge for young viewers facing a steady stream of outside pressure. Remembering one’s faith and convictions, he said, matters when messages arrive all day through social media.
For families, that gives the current story a conversation worth having even while another installment remains uncertain. Daniel’s example raises a question that does not depend on a sequel: how do we pursue opportunities without trading away what we believe?
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