Mar 14, 2024
(Bonus) The Day After is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983 on the ABC television network. The film postulates a fictional war between the NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact over Germany that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The action itself focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; and several family farms near American missile silos.[1] The cast includes JoBeth Williams, Steve Guttenberg, John Cullum, Jason Robards, and John Lithgow. The film was written by Edward Hume, produced by Robert Papazian, and directed by Nicholas Meyer.
The film was broadcast on Soviet state television in 1987,[2] during the negotiations on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The producers demanded the Russian translation conform to the original script and the broadcast not be interrupted by commentary.[3]
More than 100 million people, in nearly 39 million households, watched the film during its initial broadcast.[4][5][6] With a 46 rating and a 62% share of the viewing audience during the initial broadcast, the film was the seventh-highest-rated non-sports show until then, and in 2009 it set a record as the highest-rated television film in US history.[6]