Actor and director Viggo Mortensen has publicly decried the studio’s handling of Ron Howard’s 2022 drama, Thirteen Lives.
Viggo Mortensen isn’t a fan of Amazon Studios’ handling of the 2022 drama, Thirteen Lives, and the actor and filmmaker has some rather choice words for the company. Mortensen co-starred in the Ron Howard film which dramatised the real-life rescue of thirteen young people trapped in a Thai cave as diving experts risked their lives to save them.
The film was originally bought by MGM and set for a wide theatrical release until the studio was purchased by Amazon. At that point, Thirteen Lives was instead switched largely to a streaming-only debut.
A couple of years on, Mortensen has thoughts on the matter, and he claims that Amazon broke promises to Ron Howard and his collaborators. He said to Vanity Fair, “Amazon bought MGM, initially promised to respect the deal that MGM had made with Ron Howard, and then they went back on that. Basically you saw that movie for a week in Chicago, New York and LA, London, and that was that.”
When it comes to expressing sympathy for the ever-shifting strategies of a global company that makes billions of dollars a year, Mortensen has little: “They have all their excuses for why they did that, but it comes down to greed,” he added. “How much money do you need? I think Amazon could certainly have respected the deal, as they said they were going to, and released it widely in theatres and let it have its run. And then they could have also made money streaming. But they figured it would be more cost-effective – i.e., they would make more money – if they didn’t have to bother with spending money on promoting it and putting in theatres, and sharing that money with theatres, frankly. That’s what it comes down to. To me, it’s greed.”
Mortensen is particularly riled by the fact that Amazon’s strategy was an insult to the film’s director, Ron Howard. Given how respected Howards is within the industry, not to mention how much money he’s made for studios over the years, Mortensen accuses Amazon of a lack of class, adding: “To do that to a guy like him I think is appalling. He’s a very nice guy, so he hasn’t gone out there complaining about it, but I’m happy to do it for him. I’m not speaking for him, I’m just speaking for myself. I think it was shameful what they did.”
Strong words, but Mortensen isn’t the only star to fire broadside at Amazon of late. Road House director Doug Liman recently lobbed a few verbal grenades at Amazon while accusing the studio of similar practices. Lone voices railing against a colossal mega-corp might seem to have the impact of howling noiselessly into the wind, but there’s no doubt that people in Hollywood’s creative community do listen to these respected voices.
If it just means that contracts are tightened up that little bit more, or handshake deals become enshrined in writing, then criticisms like Mortensen’s should be appreciated, given that he’s probably off Amazon Studios’ Christmas card list now, not to mention out of consideration for the funding of any future projects. Not that Mortensen will mind though. If he’s prepared to speak out publicly in such strong terms, we imagine that he’s rather unlikely to want to have much to do with the studio in the future anyway.
