Thailand’s military-backed government created a special purpose vehicle, 13 Tham Luang Company Limited, through which it controlled the exclusive and lifelong rights to the boys. Filming took place at the homes of the real guys and Tham Luang himself. And it’s the only film version that got access to the 12 young members of the Wild Boars football team. Directed by Thai Nattawut ‘Baz’ Poonpiriya (“One for the Street”, “Bad Genius”) and Thai-American Kevin Tancharoen (“The Brothers Sun”, “The Book of Boba Fett”, “Warrior”).
While the Netflix series is also a fictional retelling of real events, it can have a different kind of authenticity. A Blu-ray and DVD release of Cave Rescue will launch on September 13, a week ahead of Netflix’s Thai Cave Rescue. On the same day (5 August 2022), Lionsgate will release “Cave Rescue”, a remastered version of Waller’s “The Cave”, in a limited edition theatrical and digital. Instead, there will be a shorter theatrical run in some countries starting Friday (July 29, 2022) before moving to Amazon Prime Video on August 5. The film was originally intended to have a wide theatrical release. It was shot entirely in Australia, preventing it from being held hostage to the Thai government’s script approvals.
Veteran Hollywood director Ron Howard employed an extensive Thai cast alongside international stars Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton and Tom Bateman for his 13 Lives, produced by Amazon’s MGM. It used thousands of hours of body cam footage from real divers and earned a BAFTA nomination. The National Geographic documentary “The Rescue”, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, ran on the festival route from September 2021 and has been available on the Disney+ streaming platform since January of this year. Despite opposition from provincial officials who quietly criticized the film’s portrayal of their roles, The Cave was shown in Thailand at local cinemas as of November 2019. And it started by clarifying the controversial decision to fully sedate the boys during their extraction. It gave prominence to Europe-based rescue diver Jim Warny, who played himself. Netflix calls its series “the most authentic and comprehensive retelling yet.”įirst to hit the market in 2019 was The Cave from Thai-British director and producer Tom Waller, which mixed reconstructions and news footage. The Netflix series is at least the fourth on-screen retelling of the rescue story and will follow two other attempts to be released over the next few weeks. Their plight sparked an unprecedented international rescue operation that ended in the loss of just one life and a spate of film and television productions. Netflix has set the September 22 release date for Thai Cave Rescue, its six-part miniseries about the dramatic events in July 2018 when 12 boys and their soccer coach were trapped in flooded limestone caves near Chiang Rai.