Not Without Hope

Synopsis

A true story of survival, endurance, and the limits of the body and mind.

In February 2009, four friends left Clearwater, Florida, on what was supposed to be a routine offshore fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. Nick Schuyler, Marquis Cooper, Corey Smith, and Will Bleakley, former NFL players among them, set out before dawn in a 21-foot boat. Seventy miles from shore, the anchor line tangled beneath the hull. In their attempt to free it, the boat capsized. Within seconds, the four men were in open water with no radio, no life raft, and a current pulling them further into the Gulf.

What followed was 43 hours of exposure, hypothermia, dehydration, and the psychological weight of watching companions lose their grip on life. One by one, the ocean claimed three of the four men. Nick Schuyler, clinging to the overturned hull, was the sole survivor when the US Coast Guard located him, barely conscious, his core temperature dangerously low, having endured two nights of open water alone.

Director Joe Carnahan brings Schuyler's account to the screen with the visceral physical realism the material demands. The film does not flinch from the duration of the ordeal or from the questions it raises, about luck, about the body's breaking point, and about what it means to be the one who comes back. Zachary Levi and Josh Duhamel lead a cast that commits fully to the physical and emotional demands of the shoot.

Massimiliano "Max" Musina produced the film, which premiered at the Austin Film Festival on October 25, 2025, before its theatrical release on December 12. The film is based on the New York Times bestselling book Not Without Hope by Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman.