Ron Howard’s ‘Thirteen Lives’ Skipping Major Theatrical Release in Favor of Amazon Push

Ron Howard’s upcoming film Thirteen Lives is switching course as Amazon takes over ownership of MGM.

The film — based on the harrowing, real-life tale of 12 boys and their soccer coach who were trapped inside a flooding cave system in Thailand for 18 days in 2018 — was intended to open nationwide in theaters Nov. 18.

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Now, Thirteen Lives will instead have a limited theatrical release before debuting relatively quickly on Prime Video as part of their summer event movie strategy, sources confirm. Variety first reported the news.

Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen play divers John Volanthen and Richard Stanton, respectively, in Thirteen Lives. The two men were part of the rescue mission that found all 13 people alive, about 2.5 miles from the cave mouth. Paul Gleeson, Tom Bateman, Joel Edgerton and Craig Challen play other members of the risky mission.

Between July 8 and 10, all of the boys were rescued from the cave. The rescue effort involved more than 10,000 people from all around the world.

The theatrical plans for Thirteen Lives, directed by Howard from a script by William Nicholson, were seemingly disrupted when Amazon and its Prime Video recently closed its deal to take over MGM.

Not long after, Michael De Luca, the motion picture group chairman of MGM, and Pam Abdy, MGM’s motion picture group president, told staff they were leaving their posts this summer.

“We are confident that the exciting vision Prime Video and Amazon Studios has for MGM and the organization [Amazon Studios and Prime Video senior vp] Mike Hopkins is building along with [Amazon Studios chief] Jennifer Salke and team, will guarantee MGM’s continued success,” the duo wrote in a note to staff.

Together, De Luca and Abdy — alongside their distribution co-venture, United Artists — restored the luster to MGM in the past year, with James Bond pic No Time to Die, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza and Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci.

Now, it’s not clear what the plans are for MGM as a stand-alone studio.

Howard’s reps didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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