Trivia / The 33

• Approval of God: The miners and their families worked with the production of the film. Mario Sepúlveda expressed his enthusiasm and approval towards having Antonio Banderas playing him.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $26 million. Box office, $24.9 million. The film received a lukewarm response from critics but an A- on Cinemascore. This was one of two busts, the other being the PointBreak remake, that crippled Alcon Entertainment. It was also the last film released scored by James Horner, who died in a plane crash five months earlier (his work on The Magnificent Seven (2016) was completed by Simon Franglen).
• California Doubling: Half of the film was shot in Colombia, not Chile.
• Fake Nationality: You can count on one hand the number of Chilean actors in principal roles:
  • Antonio Banderas and Mario Casas are Spanish.
  • Rodrigo Santoro is Brazilian.
  • Juliette Binoche is French.
  • Lou Diamond Phillips is Filipino-American.
  • Gabriel Byrne is Irish.
  • Bob Gunton is American.
  • Naomi Scott is English.
  • Oscar Nuñez is Cuban-American.
  • Adriana Barraza, Kate del Castillo, Jacob Vargas and Tenoch Huerta are all Mexican. In Huerta's case he was a Fake Bolivian, playing Carlos Manami.
• Posthumous Credit: Though James Horner died in June 2015, he's still credited for his work on the film's score.
• Swan Song: The 33 was James Horner's final completed film score before his fatal plane crash at age 61.
• What Could Have Been: Jennifer Lopez was slated to appear in the film, portraying the mayoress of Camp Hope Maria Segovia, however, she would soon have to resign her role due to schedule conflicts; she would later be replaced by Juliette Binoche.

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