Todd Hoffman, the face of Gold Rush , made a shocking announcement on Friday that he is leaving the Discovery show after eight seasons mining gold in such remote areas as the Klondike and even Guyana, South America.
Leaving the show means Todd can finally spend more time on his music career. Over the years, he has recorded cover songs from Ozzy and Lita Ford and Disturbed.
Recently, Todd was asked to perform the title song for the upcoming movie I Can Only Imagine . What do we know about the movie and Todd’s new music?
The movie is based on the MercyMe song “I Can Only Imagine,” which was written by Bart Millard. The song is from the 1999 album The Worship Project .
The story goes that the album needed one more song, and Millard wrote it in the middle of the night on the bus.
The song was the result of the struggles Millard overcome as a child and his cantankerous relationship with his father. “I Can Only Imagine” took a mere 10 minutes to write.
According to Deadline , the song “I Can Only Imagine” is the “most played Christian radio single in history.”
The movie I Can Only Imagine stars Dennis Quaid , Cloris Leachman, and Broadway star J. Michael Finley in his screen debut.
This tells the true story of Millard (Finley) recalling his personal truth about the inspiration for the song “I Can Only Imagine.”
As he talks about his past, in particular, the details about his rocky relationship with his father (Quaid), who he lost at the age of 18. Added to his moving story are the words of wisdom from his Meemaw (Leachman).
Todd Hoffman went to Facebook on Friday not to discuss his departure from Gold Rush , but instead, to post his incredible version of “I Can Only Imagine” and discuss the song. He explained that he was asked to perform the moving song for a version of the trailer.
“I was asked to sing for an online trailer for an incredible movie, I Can Only Imagine , coming out March 16th. Please share this video with your friends and family. It’s about the relationship between father and son.”
The video has already been viewed over 1.5 million times, which is more views than the official MercyMe video of the original song. This is quite a tribute to the soon-to-be-former Gold Rush star!
https://www.facebook.com/goldrushtodd/videos/1830164740327993/
In the comments field, Todd did finally address his departure from Gold Rush , explaining that his next chapter in life is television production and to continue his singing career.
“I’m leaving Gold Rush . I’m so blessed by God. My next chapter is singing and producing TV for the family. Oh my heart hurts tonight.”
On Sunday the video reached a million after less than two days, and Todd Hoffman was feeling extremely blessed.
“Our video will hit ONE MILLION views today!!! Thanks to you guys. This will movie will touch some souls.”
I Can Only Imagine will be released to movie theaters on March 16. Although there is no indication that Todd Hoffman will be in the movie, Todd Hoffman fans will certainly enjoy listening to his version of the classic Christian song and perhaps their interest in the movie will be piqued by his beautiful rendition of the song.
Although his new production company, Zum Productions, now dominates Todd Hoffman’s social media profiles, as he now calls himself “Zum media Todd” as opposed to “Gold Rush Todd,” it appears that a major part of his new career focus is on his emerging singing career. I Can Only Imagine is quite a jumpstart in that direction.