'A.D.: The Bible Continues' Airs Easter Sunday on NBC; Mark Burnett, Roma Downey Give Insight in Q&A

At a New York event, "A.D.: The Bible Continues" producer Mark Burnett was asked a very thought-provoking question: If the apostles would have joined the reality show "Survivor," who would have won?

Without missing a beat, Burnett answered the question: "Well, really, the last apostle standing was John the Beloved." John the Beloved wrote The Revelations. "... so the last man standing would probably be John the Beloved," he said.

"A.D.: The Bible Continues," the sequel to the massively successful "The Bible" miniseries on the History channel in 2013, will air on NBC this Easter Sunday.

Produced by Burnett and wife Roma Downey ("Touched By An Angel"), "A.D." centers on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the aftermath and intrigue that followed as the Apostles struggled to spread the faith against the might of the Roman Empire.

In an interview with Deadline, Burnett and Downey answered more questions and shared the initial struggles they faced in getting "The Bible" accepted by a network. Below are excerpts of the interview.

On "The Bible" and how people viewed it when Burnett and Downey started working on it:

"We were told by almost everybody we knew in town that's never going to work. You guys have lost your minds. No one's going to watch 'The Bible' on primetime TV. It's a joke, and we said we don't think so, and of course, it comes out, and 100 million people watched it. In Canada, by the way, 'The Bible' was up against hockey and beat hockey, which is astounding if you think about it. It just shows you that the audience is there."

On how "The Bible" got rejected by almost all networks, except History:

"Every other network and several cable channels passed on it. I got to say, a lot of credit goes to Nancy Dubuc at A+E. Nancy bought The Bible in the room in 30 minutes. She said The Bible is a huge part of history. We're a secular channel but we do think this is a very important part of what this channel stands for. We'll do it with you. We'll not get in your way. We'll give some notes, but it's your show. And that's what happened."

On why some of the movies based on the Bible did not get the same kind of traction:

Burnett said: "Look at 'Exodus' and 'Noah.' Here are two movies about two of the very important stories from the Bible, especially the Exodus story. Both films changed the story and neither did well. So therefore it shows you, you can't just decide to take the subject matter of the Bible and figure out you can just change what you want. I mean, the audience knows, and if you give them a Biblical story, you better get it right."

On why "A.D.: The Bible Continues" focuses on a smaller period of time than "The Bible":

Downey said: "With The Bible, we're madly ambitious in having only 10 hours to try to bring to the screen the stories from Genesis right through to Revelation. 'A.D.' has allowed us the chance to take a deeper dive into the Book of Acts. And these first 12 episodes, of which we hope it's the first of many, take us on a linear narrative on the first 10 chapters on the Book of Acts. We wanted to reset emotionally the crucifixion of Jesus and bring us right through the resurrection, which, of course, occurs on Easter Sunday night, which is the perfect night for this show to premiere."

Burnett said: "We wanted to get it right, we had massive advisory boards on this. Dramatically and historically, there's a lot of HBO's 'Rome' in this. There's a lot of 'House Of Cards' in this because you could literally change the clothing, and the struggle for politics seems like half the cast."

On whether they were worried about how "A.D." will perform as compared to "The Bible":

Burnett said: "No. I mean, listen, we have no control over that. Monday morning will be 'A.D.' ratings. In the end, all you can do is do the best you can do, and obviously, it's not hype. It's really good. 'A.D.' is better than 'The Bible,' and so it should do equally as well as, if not better. Regardless of what the ratings are, over the next 20 years, billions of people will see 'A.D.' Billions."