Amazon Prime Video has dropped the first trailer for Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives, a survival thriller chronicling the events of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue that saw a junior football team and their coach trapped in a cave in northern Thailand for 18 days.
Thirteen Lives stars Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell as BCRC (British Cave Rescue Council) divers Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, who led the rescue efforts. Joel Edgerton plays Australian diving specialist and anesthetist Dr. Richard Harris. Thirteen Lives was previously supposed to get a wide theatrical release, but after Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, the film will premiere in select theatres on July 29 before heading to Prime Video on August 5, 2022. You can check out the trailer below.
The official plot synopsis for Thirteen Lives reads:
"In the true story of Thirteen Lives, twelve boys and the coach of a Thai soccer team explore the Tham Luang cave when an unexpected rainstorm traps them in a chamber inside the mountain. Entombed behind a maze of flooded cave tunnels, they face impossible odds. A team of world-class divers navigate through miles of dangerous cave networks to discover that finding the boys is only the beginning."
The soccer team entered the cave on June 23, 2018, after football practice but were left stranded after heavy rainfall flooded the cave. The boys survived for nine days in the harrowing conditions with barely any food or light before they were discovered by divers. After that, their rescue was a race against time as the monsoon was fast approaching and would have flooded the caves for several months.
The Tham Luang cave rescue, as it’s come to be known, is one of the most audacious rescue operations ever undertaken and involved global cooperation, with dozens of countries lending aid. It involved over 10,000 volunteers, soldiers, and hundreds of divers working day and night to save the players. The mission was largely successful, with all 12 boys and their 25-year-old assistant coach making it out alive by July 10, but unfortunately, two Thai Navy Seals, Saman Kunan and Beirut Pakbara lost their lives.
Thirteen Lives is written by Oscar-nominated scribe William Nicholson (Gladiator, Everest) and also stars Tom Bateman, Paul Gleeson, Pattrakorn Tungsupakul, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Tui Thiraphat Sajakul, James Teeradon Supapunpinyo, and Weir Sukollawat Kanaros.
Thirteen Lives Was an Exciting Cinematic Challenge For Ron Howard
Veteran filmmaker Ron Howard is no stranger to helming biographical dramas, having made Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, and Rush. While the Tham Luang rescue has been previously covered in critically acclaimed films and documentaries, Thirteen Lives will be the first narrative-based retelling of the incident. Howard believes that a feature film format is more appropriate for this incredible true story, and he hopes to deliver a dramatic, tense, and culturally thoughtful film. Here’s what he told Slashfilm recently.
"As a director, I also knew that this was going to be an exciting challenge: The drama in the caves, I knew that was going to be a cinematic challenge that I was excited to meet. I knew the acting opportunities were going to be very emotional and focused. And I also knew that a large percentage of this story was going to be in Thai, and it needed to reflect Thai culture and these characters in very nuanced, very connected, contemporary, thoughtful ways. I knew there was a lot of entertainment value and power in that if we could get that right."