Have been wondering when the movie industry would recognize the potential for a new type of disaster show with Y2K. Guess it hasn't gone by unnoticed, although the movies, too, are coming awfully late.

Can't help thinking Y2K may go down as the biggest collective Procrastination in history.
Can imagine these movies will increase the traffic here on our cozy forum, trigger the bank runs, supply buying, etc. Actually, it seems some Hollywood Director would seize the Millennium angst and go full-bore with the total disaster scenario in all its diverse ramifications, if just to make a whopper of a movie. How many movie moguls are actually worried about being blamed for over-hyping?

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/98/11/22/stibusnws03026.h tml?2466332
This article was listed on the http://y2knews.com/
site for 11/22/1998 :
November 22 1998 BUSINESS NEWS
Hollywood prepares to unleash millennium bug disaster movies
FILMGOERS are about to be blitzed by a new genre of disaster epics as the millennium bug, or Y2K as it is known in America, takes Hollywood by storm, writes David Parsley.
Y2K: The Movie is being developed by Warner Brothers and is scheduled for release in autumn 1999, months before the bug is due to strike for real.
Set in New York the film stars Chris O'Donnell, famous for his role as Robin in the Batman movies. He plays a computer programmer who comes across dangerous information as midnight December 31, 1999, approaches and the plot centres on the dilemma he faces on making this discovery. Stu Zicherman, the screenwriter, describes the millennium bug as "the greatest ticking clock ever. It's one of the few deadlines in the history of the world that you cannot push back."
Other big Hollywood studios, including MGM, are also planning millennium-bug disaster movies, which, experts say, could trigger panic among filmgoers as the date of no return approaches. One studio has a script involving a Boeing 747 crashing into the Empire State Building as its systems fail.
Peter De Jager, who first sounded the millennium-bug alarm bell in 1993, acted as a consultant on the Warner Brothers' film alongside Wall Street's resident Y2K bear Ed Yardeni, an economist at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell. De Jager fears that when film and television wake up to the severity of the problem, they may over-react and terrify the public with irresponsible sensationalism such as plane crashes and nuclear explosions.
He said: "I believe Warner Brothers is handling this responsibly. This is not an Armageddon-type film. I have heard plans for other movies that the authorities should be worried about." In the real world, the millennium bug will not be solved with a single "magic bullet", he said.
Yardeni said: "From what I've seen, this is kind of like Deep Impact [where a meteor threatens to wipe out Earth] with the year 2000 in the background. Some of these movies are not helpful." Robin Guenier of Taskforce 2000, an independent bug-buster, said people should be focusing on the serious side of the bug issue rather than overdramatising it. "To make it into an apocalyptic event is not what we need," he said. "But at least we won't be around for the sequels in the year 3000."
Copyright 1998

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), November 23, 1998

Answers

The cybergnomes chomped the ending of the above rather severely. I even gave them 10 X's, and it wasn't enough! OK,
Copyright 1998 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), November 23, 1998.

If these movies are released after June of 1999, they probably won't make much difference. Public awareness will already be there!

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), November 23, 1998.

Kevin, sometimes I wonder if dramatically increased public awareness will be there by June 1999. After all, some hospitals still haven't even seriously started dealing with Y2K -- I know of a large University Hospital running on Windows 3.1 which doesn't plan to upgrade until "maybe around 2001 or after" -- and these lives-staking businesses will be shut down by insurance regulators; still they don't seem to recognize shut-down as a problem!
Many small businesses and cogwheel employees do not have a clue that Y2K will impact them personally. The movies may be rushed to release earlier if the $$makers cognize more potential profits as news articles increase. "Seeing is believing..." I believe movies *will* increase awareness, but may not be the best avenue to educate the public. But we are planning to go see any Y2K Disaster Movies just to augment our mental preparedness, which is a big coming-to-grips factor in helping survival once TSHTF.
See y'all at the popcorn stand ... ;)
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-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), November 23, 1998.

I personally don't believe there will be many y2k movies. They will not be funded or assisted by the government as are the movies dealing with astroids and other large bodys colliding with the earth. I have read that the military industrial complex must replace the cold war with something, in order to maintain the "status quo", and so have decided to use star war technology against the next major body to collide with the earth. It has been approximately 65 million years since the last earth wipeout so apparently we are due to be hit again, any day now. Not like the odds are really that it will be another 65 million years; or maybe just one more million?

See Armegeddon, Deep Impact, and the rest. Also the so called scientist last summer that "erroneously" reported to the public, a near miss by a large astroid, only to say two days later something to the effect of, "Ooops!". Just time enough to scare people and make them think that such a thing might just be possible? You think there really are such screw ups?

So. Not too many y2k videos to watch after the grid goes down. :-)

Me.

I don't see why NASA, the Pentagon and the rest won't see much reason to assist a y2k movie so the movie makers will stay where the money is.

Me.

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), November 23, 1998.

My own ooops... Double ended again and wrong at that.

The bottom line should read that "I don't see where they would find y2k movies worth funding."

Me

-- Floyd Baker (fbaker@wzrd.com), November 23, 1998.

considering the gotta-have-them-SFX/get bored in 86 minutes or less/ average movie goer, and considering that those folks actually have a significantly LONGER attention span than the average couch potato - my bet is that just the reverse will occur - folks will get the poster, the tee-shirt, and the album; then make a note on the calendar to withdraw a few extra bucks from the bank in December, and go back to sleep.

Arlin Adams

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), November 23, 1998.