EDMONTON – Super Channel and ScoreG Productions announced today they are coming together to release Thunder: The Life and Death of Arturo Gatti, a three-part true crime docuseries.
The series “looks to finally bring to the screen not only the credit Arturo Gatti deserves as a boxer who inspired so many, but also a comprehensive and complete account of the circumstances around what many still feel to this day was a suspicious and untimely end,” a press release explains.
“Arturo Gatti is one of the most remarkable yet heartbreaking stories that needs to be told in an episodic documentary series,” the release says.
“From the Italian neighborhood of St. Leonard in Montréal, to the boxing rings of New Jersey, and his enormous success in Atlantic City, Thunder celebrates the life of this legendary throwback fighter in all his guts and glory. Many called him a “throwback fighter” or an “old school gladiator”. Arturo’s life was cut tragically short when he was found dead, at the age of 37, in his hotel room while on vacation with his wife and son in Brazil.”
The series, produced in partnership with Super Channel, is written and directed by Guillaume Carlier (Borrowed From Nature) of Kino Sum and produced by Alex Orlando (Histoires de Chars). It is also produced by Adam Scorgie and Shane Fennessey of ScoreG Productions. Pollyanna Hardwicke-Brown of Gruvpix Pictures will edit and supervise post-production. Upstream flix is representing the documentary’s worldwide sales.
Neither Arturo Gatti’s estate nor Amanda Gatti have authorized or endorsed the docuseries, the release says.
Production on the series is expected to finish early this year.
“I am an Italo-Canadian who grew up in the same neighborhood as Arturo Gatti and, while I did not know him personally, I have researched him extensively and have a great sense of who he was. I have invested a big part of myself in this series because I really hope to honor him, his kids, his family and his friends with the truth and not the story,” said Orlando, in the press release.
“There are facts that we have discovered which have not been widely, or appropriately discussed in this case. To me, Thunder is a chance to give a voice to the people who Arturo left behind, the people who were betrayed by the journalists who initially covered the story, and betrayed by the fall out of justice from Canada and Brazil,” added Carlier.
Image provided by Super Channel.
