The Thai cave rescue Hollywood renaissance isn't over
Shortly after 12 kids from a youth soccer team and their adult assistant coach were rescued from a harrowing incident in a Tham Luang Nang Non cave in northern Thailand in 2018, Hollywood sprung into action, feverishly looking for ways to adapt the sequence of events into movies and TV shows.
We've already seen some of those efforts, including 2019's The Cave and 2021's Oscar-nominated documentary The Rescue. This year already saw the release of Thirteen Lives, the star-studded movie dramatization from director Ron Howard. And we're not done yet.
Netflix has released the trailer for Thai Cave Rescue, the streamer's six-episode limited series that will debut Sep. 22. This one was shot entirely in Thailand with on-location filming at the actual Tham Luang cave.
Michael Russell Gunn and Dana Ledoux Miller created and wrote Thai Cave Rescue together. The miniseries promises "a deeper dive into this incredible rescue mission," according to a Netflix logline description. "Thai Cave Rescue delivers an expanded, dramatized retelling that covers in detail, for the first time, the harrowing experiences of Coach Eak and the 12 Wild Boar teammates inside the cave and their lives outside."
Thirteen Lives focused largely on the rescue mission with Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, and Joel Edgerton playing British and Australian cave divers. Thai Cave Rescue also appears to dramatize the events leading up to the traumatic events and the lives of the kids' families during the mission.
Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix The actors of Netflix miniseries 'Thai Cave Rescue.'
Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights director Jon M. Chu had been talking about wanting to make his own Thai cave rescue story to ensure it wouldn't be white-washed by the Hollywood machine. It was then announced in 2019 that he joined Netflix's project.
We've also heard about an "inspirational" Thai cave rescue movie from a faith-based studio, so don't pack up your spelunking gear just yet.
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