Ron Howard’s ‘Thirteen Lives’ Keeps Oscar Momentum Alive

I spoke to two Oscar voters via email this week. Both incidentally pointed out Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” as a standout for them this awards season. Coincidentally, they both watched it at recent Guild screenings in L.A. — I’m hearing hearing those screenings have been enthusiastically met by voters in attendance.

On a side note, they both hated “Babylon,” and prefer Austin Butler to Brendan Fraser in the Best Actor race. As far as other Acting contenders go, Blanchett was mentioned by one of them, ditto Chastain in “The Good Nurse”.

Every year it’s the same story. Oscar pundits spitball the contenders, trying to shape the race the way they deem most satisfying to their tastes, then the Academy screenings begin in late October and the race changes.

I keep saying this, but we should not discount “Thirteen Lives.” I’m even hearing a potential re-release, this time in theaters, might occur very soon. At an academy screening during the first weekend of November, the Thai rescue drama received a roaring reaction from Oscar voters:

“At an Academy screening for THIRTEEN LIVES. Almost everyone I spoke to hadn’t seen The Rescue beforehand but they all really loved this. Lots of tears and applause at the end. I don’t expect it to do well with critics groups, but I’d watch out for it when we get to the guilds.”

Howard was in attendance and spoke with everyone at great length. I already wrote about my bafflement regarding Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” being dumped by Amazon during the dog days of August.

When MGM, who had originally positioned the film as a November release, sold the rights to the film to Amazon the streaming company clearly decided Howard’s film wasn’t worth campaigning for.

Amazon decided to use an atypical release strategy for the film, probably wanting to copy Apple’s CODA rollout, but that film already had some buzz stemming from getting a major prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Howard’s film, supposedly, received the best test scores in MGM history — earning a 97 in the top two boxes and an 86 “definite recommend”. Critics and audiences are positive on or as well with an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 95% audience score. This would have been perfect fodder for TIFF audiences — one can imagine it finishing in the top 3 for the coveted Toronto audience award.