Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” had such uniformly positive test-screening reactions that MGM 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.
Tonight, we’ve just received a press release that “Thirteen Lives” has moved to a limited theatrical release in August, with the film launching globally on Amazon Prime shortly thereafter.
It’s 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’s bizarre how this won’t be doing a festival run at all …
Unless Amazon is going for the same formula that crowned “CODA” with Oscar glory. If you remember, that film went straight to Apple TV in August, but it did win the top prize at Sundance earlier in the year.
“Thirteen Lives,” which stars Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, and Joel Edgerton, 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.