Society of the Snow: J.A. Bayona directing survival thriller based on the same story as Alive

Last Updated on November 29, 2023

Director J.A. Bayona – whose credits include The Orphanage, The Impossible, A Monster Calls, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – has set up a Spanish-language thriller at the Netflix streaming service. Titled Society of the Snow, or La sociedad de la nieve, the film is an adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same name, written by Pablo Vierci. The film is about the Uruguayan rugby team which, en route to Chile in 1972, crash-landed on a glacier in the heart of the Andes. The survivors were forced to resort to extreme measures in order to stay alive.

That is the same real-life event that director Frank Marshall brought to the screen with the 1993 film Alive, which was based on Piers Paul Read’s book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors.

Bayona wrote the screenplay for Society of the Snow with Bernat Vilaplana, Jaime Marques, and Nicolás Casariego. The Hollywood Reporter notes that filming took place last year in Spain, Uruguay, and Chile, “including on location in the El Valle de las Lágrimas, where the real crash occurred.”

The cast includes Enzo Vogrincic Roldán, Matías Recalt, Agustín Pardella, Tomas Wolf, Diego Ariel Vegezzi, Esteban Kukuriczka, Francisco Romero, Rafael Federman, Felipe González Otaño, Agustín Della Corte, Valentino Alonso, Simón Hempe, Fernando Contigiani García, Benjamín Segura, and Jerónimo Bosia.

Michael Giacchino is composing the score for Society of the Snow. Bayona told The Hollywood Reporter that Giacchino is a chameleon-like composer with “an extraordinary talent that allows him to shine in very different projects. I’m really excited that Society of the Snow is his first project in Spain and in Spanish. His very personal and elegant sensibility and his enormous skills to narrate through music are a joy for any director. His music for the film brings a special voice and energy that turns the Andes odyssey into an even more relevant, encouraging and universal story, if possible.“

Netflix has not yet revealed when they will be releasing Society of the Snow. Does this project sound interesting to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below.