Movie about football players’ fatal boat accident to premiere in St. Petersburg

Sixteen years after a boating accident claimed the lives of three football players and the Coast Guard found a sole survivor clinging to life in the Gulf of Mexico, a documentary about the ordeal is set to premiere in St. Petersburg.“Four Down” opens the 20th annual Sunscreen Film Festival at AMC Sundial theater on Thursday, April 24 at 7 p.m. The doc will screen again Sunday, April 27 at 5 p.m.In 2009, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith and former University of South Florida players Will Bleakley and Nick Schuyler departed from the Seminole Boat Ramp near Clearwater .Their vessel capsized 70 miles offshore after a failed attempt to free a snagged anchor. The men, one by one, disappeared beneath the frigid waves, Schuyler wrote in his 2010 bestselling book “Not Without Hope.” The Coast Guard found Schuyler, alone, after nearly 43 hours in rough seas.The hybrid documentary combines interviews with Schuyler, his family and Coast Guard rescuers with archival news footage and extensive reenactments to tell the tale.“I think that 16 years has given Nick and his family some perspective on the story,” producer Rick French said. “Against all odds, the U.S. Coast Guard refused to give up on their search, just like none of the guys gave up out on the water. I think we’re able to dovetail those two stories in this documentary, which is just extraordinarily powerful.”With a budget of $5 million, French said he believes it’s one of the most expensive documentaries ever made.Director Steven Cantor said it’s a level of production that at times makes “Four Down” feel more like an action thriller.“There’s a very visceral, white-knuckle element to it,” Cantor said, “but also a deeply personal story that an audience can engage with on a number of levels, not the least of which is boating safety, but also family, love and the sacrifice that friends made for each other.”The production, which filmed in St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater and the Dominican Republic, worked closely with the Coast Guard to recreate the search-and-rescue mission on land, air and sea. Eighty Coast Guard service members are expected to attend the premiere in full dress uniform.A long-awaited narrative feature film adapted from the book Schuyler wrote with Jere Longman was completed in late 2024. French, a producer on both projects, said he expects a wide theatrical release for that movie, also titled “ Not Without Hope ,” this fall.It stars Zachary Levi (“Shazam!”) as Schuyler and Josh Duhamel (“Transformers”) as Coast Guard Capt. Timothy Close. The movie has been in the works for more than a decade.Mark Wahlberg first optioned the rights with plans to star as Schuyler. Then the project moved to Relativity Media with Dwayne Johnson in the role. A bankruptcy moved the film again, with Miles Teller set to star until the pandemic derailed those plans.As for “Four Down,” the documentary premieres at Sunscreen as a sales title, but French said there has already been “intense interest” from streamers and studios looking to buy and distribute it.“We chose not to sell it yet because we want to premiere it unencumbered without a studio telling us how and where to do it,” he said. “We could have held it for bigger festivals, but we wanted the Coast Guard people who were part of this to be there. Nick (Schuyler) still lives in the Tampa area. All his family is there. For us, it was very important that it premiered in St. Pete.”The Sunscreen Film Festival runs from Thursday to Sunday, April 27. Of the 224 features, documentaries and shorts screening this year, 74 were made in Florida and 42 were made in the Tampa Bay area.Other spotlight films this year include “Operation Taco Gary’s,” in which a conspiracy theorist drags his estranged brother on a road trip, starring Simon Rex, Jason Biggs and Dustin Milligan.“All There Is,” featuring Jason Priestley and Mena Suvari, is about a troubled teen whose life is upended when her best friend’s tragedy is blamed on her movie star father’s controversial sci-fi film.And in “Dr. Quarantine,” starring Tara Reid, a renowned psychologist must battle her own neuroses and leave her apartment to save a patient during a pandemic.Festival passes and tickets for individual screenings are available at sunscreenfilmfestival.com .