I already wrote about my bafflement regarding Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” being dumped by Amazon in these dog days of August. That was before I actually saw the film, which turns out to be a reasonably diverting one.
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.
It’s quite clear that when Amazon finalized the acquisition of MGM they decided to use these ready-for-release films to try out atypical release strategies. Maybe they want to copy Apple’s CODA rollout, but that film had some buzz stemming from getting a major prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Critics and audiences are positive on “Thirteen Lives”, an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 94% 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.
In fact, this is Howard’s best-reviewed movie since 2013’s “Rush.” Howard’s most acclaimed films have been “Rush” (89%), “Frost/Nixon” (93%), “Cinderella Man” (80%),“Apollo 13” (96%) and “A Beautiful Mind” (74%)
There’s a six-part Netflix docuseries on the Thai cave rescue team being released in September. There also was a well-regarded 2021 documentary titled “The Cave”.