After Amazon’s completed purchase of renowned movie studio MGM, movie enthusiasts were left wondering about how the purchase would affect MGM’s slate of upcoming theatrical releases. Now, Amazon has confirmed thatThirteen Lives, Ron Howard’s film about the Thai cave rescue of a junior soccer team and their coach, has moved its release toAmazon Prime.
Amazon Prime’sThirteen Livesis director Howard’s first film since 2020. The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell as divers who played leading roles in the rescue of the soccer team by swimming through the flooded cave system in Thailand. The film also stars Joel Edgerton and Tom Bateman as well as a slew of Thai actors. Howard directs from a script written by William Nicholson, a veteran screenwriter who wrote scripts for many big films includingRidley Scott’sGladiatorand Tom Hooper’sLes Misérables.
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Varietybroke the news, clarifying that instead ofThirteen Lives' previously planned Oscar-season theatrical release on November 18th, Amazon will premiere the film in a limited amount of theaters in August before releasing it on Amazon Prime a few weeks later. The decision echoes similar hybrid releases by streaming companies such as Netflix’s plans forArmy of the Dead,The Harder They Fall, andDon’t Look Up. Amazon plans to positionThirteen Livesas one of their tentpole films for this summer season.
Thirteen Livesisn’t the only MGM film getting a hybrid release through Amazon.Samaritan, an original superhero film starring Sylvester Stallone, is also listed by Variety as receiving an altered release plan, as is Billy Porter’s directorial debut,Anything’s Possible. How Amazon’s new strategies will affect other films acquired through purchasing MGM,such asCreed 3, has yet to be determined.
Amazon’s decision to changeThirteen Livesinto a hybrid release shows movie enthusiasts that studios and companies still aren’t done experimenting with release plans. The theatrical window has decreased, streaming and VOD releases are becoming more lucrative and successful, and theatrical releases have become riskier financial bets than ever before. Fortunately,Thirteen Lives, a film thatAmazon and MGMboth have confidence in, will likely succeed if its quality is present, no matter how the film releases.
