The story of the trapped Chilean Miners is one that captivated the globe because it was a story that involved trapped miners, but with the feel-good twist of them not dying.  According to THR, shooting on a movie, entitled The 33 of San Jose, based on their ordeal began five days after the 33 miners emerged alive on October 13th.  Pre-production began three weeks before that and "writers J.J. Barrios and Jacobo Bergareche began penning the script with director Antonio Recio on a flight from Spain to Chile, just days after the news of the miners' plight began to unfold around the globe.  It's okay to capitalize that quickly on the story because it wasn't a tragedy.  Of course, they didn't know it wouldn't turn out to be a tragedy when they started writing the script, but I admire their positive thinking when it comes to mining incidents.  Hit the jump for more on the project.

The film will center on the experience of the miners during their sixty-nine days trapped underground.  As a trailer being shown to potential buyers exclaims, "You've seen the outside, now take a glimpse of what it was like inside."  The ending will include extensive news footage.  The movie stars a cast of 32 Chilean actors and one Bolivian star, which is the same ethnic makeup of the real-life miners.  Shooting is taking place in a Chilean mine near the real one.

The 33 of San Jose is reportedly attracting a lot of attention at the American Film Market.  The studio behind the film, American Video Film (which is actually based in Argentina) "told THR they are in conversation with a major studio to take theatrical rights to the '33' and there are four U.K. distributors circling the project. Two from Japan and a duo of U.S. Spanish language television stations are also digging the project." [The images above and below are of the actual Chilean miners]