Steven Cantor’s ‘Four Down,’ the True Story of Nick Schuyler’s Boating Tragedy, Backed by Gala Film (EXCLUSIVE)

Leo Barraclough
·2 min read
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Leading Web3 entertainment company Gala Film has partnered with the producing team of “Four Down” on an innovative financing and distribution deal for a feature-length documentary helmed by Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Cantor.

Based on The New York Times bestseller “Not Without Hope,” written by Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman, the film recounts the true story of how Schuyler survived 43 harrowing hours atop an overturned boat in the Gulf of Mexico before his rescue by the U.S. Coast Guard. The tragic boating accident claimed the lives of his best friend, former University of South Florida tight end Will Bleakley, and former Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith.

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Gala Film will finance the documentary, and make it available to its online community. Gala Music and Gala Games are supported by similar ecosystems as a means for fans to interact with entertainment projects. In the case of “Four Down,” Gala Film’s online community will have early access to exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and hands-on experiences as the filmmakers put the documentary together over the next 12 months.

Steven Cantor
Steven Cantor

Cantor and Jamie Schutz of Stick Figure Productions, Rick French of Prix Productions, and Stanley Buchthal and David Koh of Dakota Media Group will produce; with Hiram Garcia, Dany Garcia and Dwayne Johnson serving as executive producers on behalf of Seven Bucks Productions, along with Schuyler. Gala founder Eric Schiermeyer and COO Sarah Buxton will executive produce on behalf of Gala Film.

Pre-production of the documentary commenced last week. The producing team is preparing the film for an anticipated 2024 festival run before making it available on the Gala platform, theatrically and via streaming.

”We couldn’t be more excited to bring this groundbreaking story from a New York Times best-seller to an immersive Web3 format with the help of the talented teams at Seven Bucks Productions, Stick Figure, Prix Productions, and Dakota Media Group. Gala Film is committed to delivering fan-first entertainment and this is the right forward-thinking team to do just that,” said Sarah Buxton, COO of Gala.

Cantor was nominated for Best Documentary, Short Subjects for “Blood Ties: The Life and Work of Sally Mann” in 1994. In 2022, he won a Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking for “When Claude Got Shot.”

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