Remember when MGM planted stories to the press that Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” had such uniformly positive test-screening reactions that the studio decided to schedule the film’s release during Thanksgiving weekend, right at the thick of this year’s awards season schedule.
Howard’s film had received the best test scores in MGM history — earning a 97 in the top two boxes and an 86 “definite recommend”. It was originally set for release on April 15th but then got rescheduled for a prime November 18th date.
Then, Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion in March and moved Howard’s film to a limited theatrical release in early August, with the film launching globally on Amazon Prime shortly thereafter.
It was a dumbfounding decision. It seemed like the kind of movie that could get audience awards at festivals, especially at TIFF. Were the test-reactions uber-inflated? It sure seems so as “Thirteen Lives” has basically been dumped by Amazon. It has a 66 on Metacritic and an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is more-than-decent.
“Thirteen Lives” has a great cast, Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, and Joel Edgerton, and is based on the true story of a rescue mission in Thailand, where a group of young boys and their soccer coach were trapped in a flooding maze-like underground cave.