Dramatic real-life events turned into movies

The rescue mission was still underway when the first US film company showed up. "I see this as a major Hollywood film with A-list stars," says Pure Flix CEO Michael Scott. Survivors of the 2010 mining accident in Chile whose story was filmed have already warned the Thai kids, saying they will have no means of dealing with the spotlight and the media. "We couldn't, and we were adults."

Dramatic events and disasters have always moved Hollywood. The 1936 film "San Francisco" starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy set standards for future generations. The film is based on the massive earthquake that shook San Francisco in 1906 and the firestorm caused by burst gas pipelines. The film was extremely realistic at the time.

This legendary airship offered its passengers pure luxury on two decks. The Hindenburg had already flown across the Atlantic several times, it had been to the USA and Brazil. On May 6, 1937, 35 people were killed when a hydrogen tank caught fire. Only 65 people survived the inferno, some of them with serious burns. The historical drama by director Robert Wise was released in 1975.

"Houston, we have a problem": This legendary sentence refers to an oxygen tank that exploded on board Apollo 13 on a trip to the moon in 1970. What could have been a total disaster was turned into a film in 1995 starring Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon in the leading roles. The mission's real astronauts acted as consultants during the shooting.

When the Titanic was launched in 1912, the largest ship in the world was considered unsinkable. Cabins and berths were in high demand for her maiden voyage - a veritable death sentence. When the ship collided with an iceberg, 1,541 of the 2,200 people on board died because there were not enough lifeboats. The disaster was turned into movies several times, most recently in 1997 by James Cameron.

In 1963, 11 miners were rescued from a two-week ordeal holding out in complete darkness in a collapsed iron mine in Lengede, near Hanover. Throughout their ordeal, the miners had to tolerate boulders falling from the ceiling. Decades later, in 2003, their rescue was made into a two-part film for German television, that saw more than 11 million people glued to the screen.

In recent decades, nothing has shaken the self-image of the US as much as the September 11, 2001 attacks on the towers of the World Trade Center. Oliver Stone's 2006 film shows the events from the perspective of some of the firefighters (photo: Nicolas Cage) who, while searching for injured people in the rubble, end up buried themselves.

In 1998, an Austrian girl was kidnapped on her way to school. She spent eight years in the hands of her kidnapper, only managing to escape when she was 18. Her story became a major media event. "In their sensationalist greed, the tabloid reporters were far off the mark," she once remarked. She published a book about her imprisonment in 2010, the film followed in 2013.

In 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped in a mine for 69 days, struggling to survive until they were finally rescued with escape pods. The mine drama starring Antonio Banderas was turned into a Hollywood movie in 2015. Many of the workers suffered from the media hype: "First everyone talks about you, you're on TV and on the front pages of newspapers. And then ... nothing."

This film is based on a miracle water landing. In 2009, shortly after take-off from LaGuardia Airport in New York, both engines of an Airbus failed due to a bird strike. Pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger risked a water landing on the Hudson River. All 155 passengers and crew survived. Tom Hanks (photo) stars as "Sully" in the 2016 film, directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood.

The film by German director Katja Benrath tells the true story of an Islamic attack on a bus in Kenya. The head of the terrorist group forces everyone out: "Muslims and Christians apart," he shouts. Some of the passengers are shot dead, but that doesn't diminish the solidarity among the remaining passengers. In 2017 "Watu Wote" won the Student Academy Award.

In 1976, left-wing terrorists hijacked an Air France plane from Tel-Aviv to Paris with 250 passengers onboard. They demanded the release of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel and intended to free members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) from prison. Director Jose Padilha spoke to some of the former hostages. For many, the drama is still as real as if it had happened yesterday.