Editor’s note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
27.12.2022 - 23:29 / deadline.com
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.
On June 23, 2018, a young Thai soccer team and their coach became trapped in a cave when an early monsoon hit. Director Ron Howard became entranced by the harrowing 18-day ordeal to rescue them, and decided that he needed to tell the story on film.
“I honestly felt that this was a movie for this moment,” Howard said during a panel for the Amazon Studios movie at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles event. “I thought it was an object lesson on what is possible, that you could cross these cultural barriers and make something really remarkable happen. If you tried to write this, no one would ever believe it, and yet it happened.”
Written by William Nicholson, Thirteen Lives tells the story of the 12 boys and their coach who were exploring the Tham Luang cave when an early monsoon hit and trapped them in a flooded cave system. As the entire country of Thailand rallies to help out, a group of the world’s best divers are brought in to traverse miles of dangerous cave networks, but they soon discover that finding the boys is only half the battle. The film stars Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton and Tom Bateman as the rescue divers.
Howard shot the film in Australia and Thailand, with production designer Molly Hughes in charge of re-creating the cave systems in a way that could be filmed. The actors surprised Howard when they insisted on doing the dives themselves, rather than stunt doubles.
“I didn’t think they should do it for safety reasons and production-wise where there was no way to make it fit,” Howard said, “but they were so insistent upon it. And once we
Editor’s note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Mike Hill, the film editor who, along with editing partner Dan Hanley, cut 22 consecutive Ron Howard feature films beginning with Night Shift in 1982 through Heart of the Sea in 2015, died of Cryptogenic Organizing Pneumonia (COP) January 5 at his home in Omaha, Nebraska. He was 73.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
For Thirteen Lives, production designer Molly Hughes was tasked with building a set based on the Tham Luang cave system in Thailand. The challenge was creating a flooded cave system tight enough to be realistic, but large enough to fit the actors and cameras. Directed by Ron Howard, the film is based on the true story of the Thai soccer team trapped in a flooded cave, and the brave volunteer rescue divers who saved them. Although the event was highly documented, there was little documentation of the cave system, so Hughes instead focused on what would work best for the story. Early on in the production, the actors decided that they wanted to do the dives instead of stunt doubles.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will factor in this year’s movie awards races.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.
It wasn’t very well reviewed and disappointed at the box office, but in the universe of Star Wars fanboys, even Solo: A Star Wars story has its adherents (disclosure: I am one of them). So when NME took a tour through Ron Howard’s oeuvre with the director, the mandatory question about a sequel had to be asked.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (or, in 2018, before the likes of “The Mandalorian” and “Andor“), Ron Howard‘s “Solo: A Star Wars Story” was a big deal to “Star Wars” fans. The film did alright commercially, taking in $393 million at the box office off a $300 million budget, but critics didn’t care for it.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.
Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.