News

Click here to read the full article.

In late 2018 — not long after John Volanthen and I helped free the 12 boys of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach, Ekkaphon Chanthawong, from the flooded caves in the Tham Luang cave system in July of that year — producers P.J. van Sandwijk and Gabrielle Tana approached me about making a film about the rescue mission. At the time, we had no idea who the director would be or what the screenplay would look like, but we began to talk to a script researcher for what would eventually become Thirteen Lives.

Once screenwriter William Nicholson was on board, director Ron Howard got involved and MGM decided to fund it. My diving partner and I had a Zoom call with Ron in which he shared his vision of what he wanted, and it was in September that Ron telephoned to say he’d gotten...

Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” is the latest example of the director’s ability to generate riveting cinema from real-world headlines. Like “Apollo 13” and “Frost/Nixon,” it takes a historical event many audience members will have some awareness of — in this case the dramatic rescue of a Thai soccer team trapped in an underwater cave — and brings it to vivid life, creating nail-biting suspense despite the outcome being common knowledge. The key to the film’s effectiveness is its rigorous attention to detail and meticulous sense of research and journalistic accuracy, qualities evident in every craft on display.

In the videos below, supervising sound editors Rachael Tate and Oliver Tarney, re-recording mixer William Miller, cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, production designer Molly Hughes, and editor James Wilcox discuss how they preserved the authenticity of the story that inspired “Thirteen Lives” while also using all the tools of drama and cinema — including...

With “Thirteen Lives,” Ron Howard delivers his cinematic interpretation of the story of the stranded Thai soccer team that commanded the world’s attention in the early summer of 2018. Howard’s film joins other projects — including the 2021 National Geographic documentary “The Rescue” and Netflix’s upcoming limited series “Thai Cave Rescue” — that covered the incredible true story of the skilled divers that rescued the team.

The screenplay comes from “Unbroken” and “Everest” screenwriter William Nicholson. Producers include P.J. van Sandwijk, Gabrielle Tana, Karen Lunder, William M. Connor, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. Executive producers include Jon Kuyper, Carolyn Marks Blackwood, Marie Savare, Michael Lesslie, Aaron L. Gilbert and Jason Cloth.

For fans of Ron Howard or those still fascinated by the suspenseful true story, here’s how to watch “Thirteen Lives”:

Also Read:

Here’s What’s New on Amazon Prime Video in August 2022 When Does “Thirteen Lives” Premiere?...

(L to R) Colin Farrell as John Volanthen, Viggo Mortensen as Rick Stanton and Sahajak ‘Poo’ Boonthanakit as Governor Naronsak in Thirteen Lives, directed by Ron Howard, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Credit: Vince Valitutti / Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2022 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

When a Thai boys soccer team was trapped in a cave by flash flooding in 2018, the world was riveted as divers attempted to locate and rescue the teenage boys and their coach in the flooded cave, ultimately calling in volunteers who specialized in cave diving. Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell play two of those cave divers, middle-aged hobbyists who travel from their homes in the U.K. to volunteer to help save the boys and their coach. As the days dragged on, hope faded and it seemed only a miracle could save them. Thirteen Lives dramatizes that 2018 rescue mission, and demonstrates exactly how miraculous it was.

“Thirteen Lives,” Ron Howard’s new film about the Tham Luang cave rescue, is the most elaborate attempt yet at giving the Hollywood treatment to one of the most dangerous rescue missions in recent memory. The production meticulously recreated the Tham Luang caves where twelve youth soccer players and their coach were trapped underwater. Apparently, they did such a good job that even stars like Colin Farrell were terrified by the experience.

“Terrifying in a word. Terrifying,” Farrell said in a new interview with Entertainment Tonight. “It really was. It was scary. I’m not a great swimmer anyway, not that we were swimming, not that we were treading water, we had to stay on the surface, but they built a really impressive network of caves, it was about four or five different caves that were based on the topography of the caves, the Tham Luang caves in Thailand, and...

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including red carpets for House of the Dragon, Thirteen Lives, Vengeance and Uncoupled.

Vengeance Los Angeles premiere

B.J. Novak premiered his directorial debut Vengeance on Monday at Dtla’s Ace Theater, along with stars Ashton Kutcher, Boyd Holbrook, Isabella Amara, John Mayer and Finneas.

Ashton Kutcher, Boyd Holbrook, Finneas O’Connell, B.J. Novak, Isabella Amara, John Mayer and Lio Tipton B.J. Novak and Mindy Kaling

Surface premiere

Apple TV+ celebrated premiere of its thriller series Surface at NYC’s Morgan Library and Museum on Monday, led by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Ari Graynor, Andres Joseph, Millie Brady, Christin Park, Markian Tarasiuk, creator Veronica West and executive producer Reese Witherspoon.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Reese Witherspoon Markian Tarasiuk, Andreas Joseph, guest, Veronica West, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Reese Witherspoon, Sam Miller, Lauren Neustadter, Oliver Jackson-Cohen,...

The shoot for “Thirteen Lives,” the feature film adaptation of the miraculous 2018 cave-diving rescue mission known as the Tham Luang cave rescue, found all principal cast members taking to the water to navigate long, recreated cave corridors. Tom Bateman, who plays one of the rescue divers in the film, recalls the hours upon hours of underwater training the film required.

“We were fucking pruned!” Bateman told Variety at the red carpet premiere of the film at Westwood Village Theater on Thursday night. “It was pretty tough, man. We get looked after, but you pretty much put on a wetsuit at, like, 6 in the morning. And you’re not out of it until 8 o’ clock at night.”

Bateman stars alongside Viggo Mortensen, Collin Farrell and Joel Edgerton in the new film from director Ron Howard. “Thirteen Lives” follows the true story of the 2018 rescue of a boys’ soccer team in Thailand,...

Click here to read the full article.

Viggo Mortensen turned up to Thursday night’s Thirteen Lives premiere in Westwood wearing the same shirt he donned for the London premiere of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on Dec. 11, 2003. Make no mistake — the red carpet déjà vu moment was “absolutely intentional.”

Under a midnight blue suit, Mortensen wore a sky blue silk shirt modeled after a United Nations flag that he had custom-made nearly two decades ago.

“[Thirteen Lives] is a story about a selfless, international collective effort to save ordinary people —12 kids and a coach. The world came together and did something like that, not for political gain, not for money, but because it’s the right thing to do,” the actor told The Hollywood Reporter of the Ron Howard-directed film, a narrative recreation of the 2018 dramatic rescue in a Thailand cave. “Those things seem to...

Over the course of an engaging (if inevitably repetitive) two and a half hours, “Thirteen Lives” reenacts the incredible rescue effort that captured the world’s attention for several weeks in the summer of 2018: Twelve boys and the assistant coach of a Thai soccer team went exploring the Tham Luang cave when an unforeseen rainstorm forced them deeper and deeper. What should have been a reasonably easy hike instead became a near-death experience, as rising waters and an early monsoon season left them stranded for days, until a handful of the world’s most experienced divers arrived on the scene.

International news coverage ensured that audiences around the globe were aware of the situation, but far fewer know just what it took to get those kids to safety — which explains why this feel-good story has inspired multiple films, from “The Rescue” to “The Cave,” with an even more “authentic...

Netflix will on September 22 release its long-gestating drama about the real-life rescue of 12 boys and an adult who were trapped in a cave in northern Thailand. Thai Cave Rescue will show how the Wild Boars soccer team’s afternoon exploring with their 25-year-old coach went disastrously wrong when heavy rain trapped them inside, leading to a massive international recovery mission that engrossed the world.

Netflix partnered with filmmakers across Thailand and beyond to create the six-episode series, which is filmed entirely in the Asian nation, after jointly acquiring rights to the story with Sk Global Entertainment back in 2019. The drama unfolds through the perspectives of the boys at the center of the rescue.

Created by Michael Russell Gunn and Dana Ledoux Miller, the limited series is directed by Thailand’s Baz Poonpiriya and U.S. director Kevin Tancharoen. Both also serve as executive producers alongside Jon M. Chu and Lance Johnson for Electric Somewhere; John Penotti (Crazy Rich Asians) for Sk Global Entertainment; John Logan Pierson.

Cast includes Papangkorn “Beam” Lerkchaleampote as Coach Eak, Thaneth “Ek” Warakulnukroh as Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osottanakorn, and Urassaya “Yaya” Sperbund and Manatsanun “Donut” Phanlerdwongsakul as Kelly and Pim — fictional representatives of the real-world hydraulic engineers and park rangers that made the incredible rescue possible. Supakorn “Tok” Kitsuwan is former Navy Seal diver Saman “Ja Sam” Gunan, and Bloom Varin plays army doctor Colonel Bhak Loharjun.

The boys are played by 12 young local actors, with filming taking place at the homes of the real boys and Tham Luang, where they were trapped, itself.

As with the real mission, Thai Cave Rescue international actors to portray key contributors in this rescue, including Nicholas Bell as Vern Unsworth, Nicholas Farnell as John Volanthen, Christopher Stollery as Rick Stanton, Rodger Corser as Dr. Richard “Harry” Harris, and Damon Herriman as Dr. Craig Challen.

“Thai Cave Rescue is the first opportunity for audiences worldwide to see the Tham Luang story in a new and more emotional light — centering the perspectives of the 12 Wild Boars, Coach Eak, and heroes like Saman ‘Ja Sam’ Gunan, whose lives beyond the operation remain largely outside the public spotlight,” said Poonpiriya.

Tancharoen added: “As a Thai American, I feel so incredibly fortunate to help tell this story through the lens and soul of the Thaipeople. I wanted to bring my experience of telling big superhero stories to the real world. One where real-life superheroes worked together for a common cause regardless of where they were from, and the only superpowers are the perseverance of the human spirit and what we can accomplish when we work together.”

Ron Howard and MGM’s Thai cave rescue film Thirteen Lives is set for its theatrical debut on Friday (July 29). Read Todd McCarthy’s review here. The story was also told in Nat Geo documentary The Rescue last year and in indie film The Cave back in 2019.

Netflix has set a Sept. 22 release date for “Thai Cave Rescue,” its six-part mini series about the dramatic events of July 2018 when 12 boys and their football coach were trapped in flooded limestone caves near Chiang Rai.

Their plight sparked an unprecedented international rescue effort that ended with the loss of just one life and a flurry of film and TV productions.

The Netflix series is at least the fourth on-screen retelling of the rescue tale and will follow two other efforts releasing over the next weeks. Netflix touts its series as “the most authentic and expansive retelling yet.”

First into the market, in 2019, was “The Cave,” by Thai-British director-producer Tom Waller, which mixed reconstructions and news footage. It gave prominent position to Europe-based rescue diver Jim Warny playing himself. And it broke ground by clearly depicting the controversial decision to fully sedate the boys during their extraction. Despite pushback from provincial officials,...

Click here to read the full article.

Netflix’s long in the works series about the miraculous 2018 cave rescue of Thailand’s Wild Boars youth soccer team finally has a launch date. The six-episode limited series Thai Cave Rescue will release on the streaming service worldwide on Sept. 22.

Filmed entirely in Thailand, the show tells the real-life story of the 12 young Thai soccer players and their 25-year-old coach after they became stuck in a vast underground cave complex near the Myanmar border. The story unfolds from the perspectives of the boys themselves, as well as the experiences of their families and the vast global team that came together to save them.

Thai Cave Rescue is one of several screen projects to tackle the sensational story. Ron Howard’s Hollywood film version, Thirteen Lives, starring Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell and Joel Edgerton is getting a limited theatrical release this Friday ahead...

Back in 2018, the world stood by as the story of thirteen boys were trapped in an increasingly dangerous flooding cave in Thailand, with the joyous and safe return of all thirteen lives it was only a matter of time before this story would land in the hands of legendary filmmaker Ron Howard to re-tell.

The story focuses on the real-life story of the boy’s football team from Thailand who became trapped in a cave for more than two weeks when heavy rains partially flooded the cave, blocking their way out.

All twelve of the boys were rescued along with their 25-year-old coach, though the effort claimed the life of a retired Thai Navy Seal, Saman Kunan, who ran out of air while saving the kids. Another rescue diver died a year and a half later as a result of a blood infection contracted during the rescue.

We sat down...

The only real problem with Thirteen Lives, an engrossing account of the rescue of 12 Thai boys and their coach from desperate straits when they become stranded in perilous caves during a monsoon, is that the same story was just recounted in the documentary The Rescue last fall. Yes, of course, big-budget feature films starring known actors can draw a lot more customers than do docs. But the fact that Ron Howard’s sometimes stirring new drama will only be in theaters for a week before it starts streaming August 5 will vastly diminish the number of people who might otherwise have experienced this stirring tale on the big screen, where it was clearly designed by Howard and his colleagues to be seen. Too bad, because it’s a fulsome film, both emotionally and as a production.

Telluride Review: ‘The Rescue’

The Rescue was a very high-profile documentary, and deservedly so, as...

Click here to read the full article.

The most haunting frame in Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives shows a huddle of bicycles, hurriedly deposited along the metal fence leading into Tham Luang Nang Non cave in northern Thailand. They belong to the 12 soccer players (between the ages of 11 and 16) and their 25-year-old coach, who decided to go exploring one muggy day in late June 2018. What the group thought would be a brief post-practice excursion on familiar terrain turned into an 18-day nightmare. Hours after the team entered the underground karstic cavern, it flooded.

Most people know the story of the mission to rescue the soccer team, even if they’re hazy on the details. The news galvanized the international community and drew a captivated, sympathetic audience. Thirteen Lives is not the first attempt to tell the tale. In 2019, Tom Waller premiered his uneven docudrama The Cave at the Busan International Film Festival.

Viggo Mortensen plays a heroic firefighter in new movie Thirteen Lives, based on the dramatic 2018 rescue of 12 boys and their coach in Thailand. But the film isn’t simply a white-saviour narrative, as its director explains

One day, retired firefighter Rick Stanton got a phone call at his home in Coventry. It was Ron Howard. He had good news. He had cast someone who had been in Lord of the Rings to play Stanton in his new movie, Thirteen Lives. Stanton’s mind raced. Ian McKellen? Andy Serkis? Probably not Cate Blanchett. “When I found out it was Viggo Mortensen, I was very pleased,” says Stanton, eyes glinting. “I’d never really thought who would play me in a film, but he’d be up there.”

Stanton was one of five cavers who rescued 12 boys of the Wild Boars football team and their coach from the Tham Luang cave in...

This evening saw the UK Premiere of Thirteen Lives, attended by director Ron Howard, Joel Edgerton and Tom Bateman as well as real life divers Rick Stanton, Jason Mallinson, Chris Jewell. The film also stars Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell.

The film hits select cinemas on July 29th and launches on Prime Video on August 5th, 2022. Colin Hart and Scott Davis were on the red carpet, here are their interviews.

Thirteen Lives UK Premiere Interviews

Plot:

The story focuses on the real-life story of the boy’s football team from Thailand who became trapped in a cave for more than two weeks when heavy rains partially flooded the cave, blocking their way out.

The post Thirteen Lives UK Premiere Interviews – Ron Howard, Joel Edgerton, Rick Stanton & more on the thrilling real life story appeared first on HeyUGuys.

Prime Video has released the trailer for Ron Howard’s upcoming film Thirteen Lives. The film hits select theaters exclusively for one week on July 29, Launching globally on Prime Video on August 5.

The film stars Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, Tom Bateman, Paul Gleeson, Pattrakorn Tungsupakul, Tui Thiraphat Sajakul, James Teeradon Supapunpinyo, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Weir Sukollawat Kanaros.

Thirteen Lives recounts the incredible true story of the tremendous global effort to rescue a Thai soccer team who become trapped in the Tham Luang cave during an unexpected rainstorm. Faced with insurmountable odds, a team of the world’s most skilled and experienced divers – uniquely able to navigate the maze of flooded, narrow cave tunnels – join with Thai forces and more than 10,000 volunteers to attempt a harrowing rescue of the twelve boys and their coach. With impossibly high stakes and the entire world watching, the group embarks on their most challenging dive yet,...

Amazon and MGM have debuted the trailer for the retelling of the real-life story ‘Thirteen Lives.’

The story focuses on the real-life story of the boy’s football team from Thailand who became trapped in a cave for more than two weeks when heavy rains partially flooded the cave, blocking their way out.

All twelve of the boys were rescued along with their 25-year-old coach, though the effort claimed the life of a retired Thai Navy Seal, Saman Kunan, who ran out of air while saving the kids. Another rescue diver died a year and a half later as a result of a blood infection contracted during the rescue.

To celebrate the global launch of the trailer, director Ron Howard and members of the cast including Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen amongst others came together to open up and express their honour in being able to take part in retelling...

Prime Video has released the first trailer for the ripped-from-the-headlines drama “Thirteen Lives,” Ron Howard’s upcoming film about the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue.

In June and July 2018, the members of a junior football team were trapped for 18 days in Thailand’s Tham Luang Nang Non cave, after heavy rainfall flooded the cave system and blocked their way out. As the team – who ranged in age from 11-16 years old – and their coach remained trapped for weeks, the situation attracted global interest and an international rescue team was assembled to locate them. Howard’s film will chronicle the events of the rescue, focusing on the efforts of the divers to save the trapped team members.

Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell lead the ensemble cast as Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, the British cave divers who volunteered their expertise to help find the group alongside anesthetist Harry Harris (Joel Edgerton) and...

Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary “Flee” has been named the best nonfiction film of 2021 at the 15th annual Cinema Eye Honors, which were presented on Tuesday night in New York City. “The Rescue,” about the efforts to retrieve a Thai youth soccer team from a flooded cave, won the Audience Choice Prize.

The Neon release “Flee,” which uses animation to give anonymity to a young gay man who escaped Afghanistan as a teenager and made his way to Denmark, also won the award for graphic design and animation. It is nominated for Oscars in the documentary, animated-feature and international-feature categories.

Robert Greene won the directing award for “Procession,” while Matthew Heineman, Jenna Millman and Leslie Norville took the producing prize for “The First Wave.”

Jessica Kingdon’s “Ascension” won the most Cinema Eye awards, three, taking the prizes for debut feature, cinematography and score.

Other winners included “Summer of Soul...

Help wanted: seeking anesthesiologist with world-class cave diving skills and experience in underwater rescues. Volunteer position.

If a job listing like that went out, it’s hard to imagine anyone with the necessary background to apply. Fortunately, one person ticks off all those boxes and more – his name, Dr. Richard “Harry” Harris. The mild-mannered Australian physician stepped up when all those abilities were called for – urgently – after 12 young members of a Thai soccer team and their coach became stranded in a flooded cave in the summer of 2018.

Dr. Harris – Harry, as he prefers to be called – flew to Northern Thailand to join an ad hoc team of British amateur cave divers, Thai government officials, Thai Navy SEALs, and American military personnel hastily assembled for a mission with very poor odds of success. The heroic endeavor is told in The Rescue, the National Geographic documentary directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and...

It was always going to be very difficult for documentary filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin to equal their sweaty palms masterpiece Free Solo, but they come close enough with The Rescue. Unlike their 2018 Oscar-winner, which focused on one dare-devil climber’s attempt to scale something close to a sheer cliff, the team’s new effort involves a vast operation to save the lives of a dozen teenaged athletes and their coach trapped in a labyrinthian cave in far northern Thailand in June and July of 2018. The suspense and unique character of the widely followed story guarantees vast international viewer interest in this cogently reported National Geographic offering.

It may be difficult for viewers who suffer from claustrophobia and/or fear of the dark to cope with long stretches of this tightly told chronicle. But this is nothing compared to what the participants had to have felt when rapidly rising waters prevented the team,...

Taken together, boundless courage, physical stamina and emotional resilience form the magnetic core of co-directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s nonfiction oeuvre. The duo behind Oscar-winning nail-biter “Free Solo” naturally gravitate toward real-life you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it tales, extracting from them a great deal more than beautifully photographed and entertaining accounts of perseverance and survival. Far greater than mere extreme sports docs, their movies raise philosophical queries about life and the universe, bringing an existential edge to the challenges they capture.

Still, no risk that Chin and Vasarhelyi have depicted thus far has been more significant or more unreservedly worth taking than the one they chart in “The Rescue,” a stunning documentary of bone-deep moral resonance and cinematic mastery that deserves to be experienced on the big screen. The extraordinary story they tell this time takes us to the summer of 2018, when the Wild Boar soccer team — a dozen young boys...

“The Rescue” is first and foremost . “Free Solo” filmmakers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin — further cementing their reputation as rock stars of the extreme non-fiction cinema scene with their most absorbing and ingeniously crafted stress-fest to date — so intimately embed us with the ragtag team of cave divers who attempted the impossible that we feel worthy of a medal just for watching them do it.

And yet, the documentary’s ample suspense is never so overwhelming that it obscures this story’s poignant sentiment, nor is the selfless heroism on display so overwrought that it washes away the bittersweet aftertaste “The Rescue” leaves behind. Yes, Vasarhelyi and Chin have cobbled together a true life men-on-a-mission movie intense enough that even Michael Bay and Peter Berg should be able to recognize that no mega-budget dramatization could match up to it. But “The Rescue” ultimately isn’t as fraught a story...