Twenty stand-up, small town guys. An elite squad of first responders in the Arizona mountains. Everyday heroes whose loved ones suffered the “greatest loss of firefighters since 9/11.”
Any studio head would likely break a finger motioning to greenlight that concept if it came through on spec, but that’s not how it was born. The story of Josh Brolin and Miles Teller’s “Only The Brave,” out Friday from Sony Pictures, happened in real life and was adapted from a widely-read 2013 GQ magazine story.
Sean Flynn’s “No Exit” was published in the pages of the Conde Nast title in 2013 and mounted as an ambitious web feature tracking the harrowing Yarnell Hill Fire — Arizona’s deadliest ever which overran 19 members of the aforementioned squad named the Granite Mountain Hotshots.