The incredible rescue of a Thai football team who spent more than two weeks trapped in a cave in northern Thailand is to be made into a Netflix series. The famous rescue of the 12 young footballers and their coach who were trapped in the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand for 17 days gripped the world last year. The boys will sign a deal with the streaming giant Netflix to retell their ‘harrowing and heroic story’.
“The series will be produced by Hollywood’s SK Global Entertainment, which has been granted lifetime rights to contact the 13 young members of the Wild Boars football team,” government spokesman Lt-General Werachon Sukondhapatipak said at an event at Bangkok’s National Library. Werachon said the boys will each be paid about 3 million baht for taking part in the series, while some money will also be donated to local causes and organisations who were involved in the rescue operation.
Sirisak Kotpatcharin, spokesperson for the 13 Tham Luang Company which is in charge of the copyright of the boys and their coach revealed that Netflix will have exclusivity, meaning that the boys will no longer be able to give interviews without the streaming company’s permission. The Netflix series is just one of several productions about the rescue that is said to be in the pipeline.
The world’s biggest movie companies including Disney and Twentieth Century Fox are all said to be bidding to bring the ordeal, which cost the life of one rescue diver, to the big screen. Meanwhile, a movie called The Cave is set to be released in time for the July anniversary of the rescue mission.
