It was only a matter of time before someone made the Thai cave rescue operation into a movie, but at least one production company has already gotten started. A representative from the studio Pure Flix—which specializes in family-friendly and faith-based movies and is perhaps best known for God’s Not Dead—confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that it has designated an unusually large budget of $30 million to $60 million to bring the ordeal to the big screen.
More specifically, that representative was Pure Flix CEO and co-founder Michael Scott, who lives in Thailand. Scott told THR that his wife was friends with Sgt. Saman Kunan, the soldier who died in the process of trying to free a stranded soccer team and their coach from Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand. He added that he has been in contact with some of the divers on the mission and family members of the trapped soccer players.
Scott clarified to THR that the film about the rescue will not necessarily have a Christian message, just “an inspirational one.” And why not? Everything about the story calls out for a Hollywood treatment, from the soccer team getting stranded in the first place to the British divers who discovered them to the massive operation to save them with the eyes of the world watching. It even has a happy, if bittersweet, ending.
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