It’s been a big year for Apple’s movie division, as it delivered the biggest original movie of the year with the Brad Pitt-led F1 as well as stellar original projects to its streaming service earlier in the year with The Gorge. That trend has continued with Apple’s latest project, but despite strong reviews, audience reception, and a soar to the top of the streaming charts, no one is talking about it, and it’s kind of puzzling as to why.
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Apple’s latest is the R-rated film The Lost Bus, which is based on the incredible true story of a bus driver and a school teacher who transported 22 children to safety during the tragic fire that devastated Paradise, California, in 2018. The Paul Greengrass-directed film stars Matthew McConaughey (Kevin McKay), America Ferrera (Mary Ludwig), and Ashlie Atkinson (Ruby Hartwig) and was produced and spearheaded by Jamie Lee Curtis. Now the powerful film has started to make an impact on the streaming charts.
Apple’s New Hit
The film immediately debuted to the top spot in the Top Movies on Apple for the week (via FlixPatrol), beating out Highest 2 Lowest, All of You, The Gorge, and Fountain of Youth. In addition to the streaming success, the film has an impressive 87% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviews praising Greengrass’ ability to capture the terrifying nature of these true events as well as the emotional story of two unexpected heroes in the midst of a tragedy.
The audience score is even higher, with a stellar 92%. Reviews highlighted the film’s intensity, the great performances from the lead actors, how the film built suspense and tension, and how there was also a story of heart at the center of it.
Making a Real Impact
There’s also the impact the film made on the people involved in creating it. Curtis revealed in an interview what led to her wanting to adapt Lizzie Johnson’s book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire into a movie, and that led to a moment where she immediately pulled the car over to get things in motion.
“I first heard the story of Kevin McKay from the Washington Post, when they were doing a review of Lizzie Johnson’s book [Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire],” Curtis told RadioTimes. “They highlighted his story, and I remember I said to my husband, kind of flippantly… ‘Well, there’s the movie.’ Because of course, you could tell that very interpersonal, human story amid this inferno that would be almost impossible to imagine filming.”
“I didn’t do anything that day, and the next day, I was driving in my car in the mountains,” Curtin said. “And there was an NPR interview of Scott Simon interviewing Lizzie Johnson, the author of the book. And he said… ‘Lizzie, the story that got me was Kevin McKay and Mary Ludwig.’ And I pulled my car over on the side of the road. I called Jason Blum, who’s my business partner, and I said, Jason, I want to buy this book. I’m sending you links. It’s going to be expensive to buy, but I believe it’ll be the most important thing either one of us do in the movie business,” Curtis said.
It’s clear that anyone who comes into contact with the real-life story of what McKay and Ludwig did during those events will not forget it anytime soon, and the film is clearly resonating with critics and fans, so the question becomes, why is no one talking about it?
That question is a bit difficult to answer, though it could partly be due to a lack of awareness. If you weren’t already locked in on the film’s release ahead of time, you wouldn’t know it had just been released over the past week. There’s not much in the way of advertisement happening for the film, as I saw far more about The Gorge before it debuted than I have seen for The Lost Bus.
There’s also Apple TV having a smaller platform and overall awareness compared to streamers like Netflix and Prime Video, and yet that didn’t stop F1 from being a monster global hit in theaters, and The Lost Bus did get a theatrical release. It could just be a matter of a film getting swept up in all of the other content that’s out there, but now that you know about it, you should go watch it, and you can right now on Apple TV.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
