From Business Week January 11, 1999

With some folks already preparing for global disaster as the millennium nears, Hollywood wants to cash in on those fears. So get ready for Y2K: The Movie, a fall Warner Brothers Studios production whose plot centers on the Year 2000 computer bug. It will star Chris O'Donnell (Robin in Batman Forever) as a hunky Manhattan hacker who finds a potentially lethal version of bug-infested Y2K code on the hard drive of a "master computer" controlled by evil forces out to destroy the world.

International Y2K crisis managers, however, are less than thrilled with this thriller. Meeting at the UN last month to devise ways to soothe public panic, they began drafting a formal resolution urging Hollywood studios to cool it on bug-disaster films next year. Explains Carlos Jarque, Mexico's official Y2K manager: "The high rate of computer illiteracy aroudn the world is fertile ground for people with apocalyptic scenarios."

But Stu Zicherman, who wrote the Y2K screenplay, says "Y2K is the greatest ticking clock ever, one of the few deadlines in the history of the world that you cannot push back." Or, apparently, resist: 1999 also brings 20th Century Fox Film's Entrapment , starring Sean Connery - and a global computer blackout on Jan. 1, 2000.

-- Runway Cat (Runway_Cat@hotmail.com), February 12, 1999

Answers

I hold little hope that the subject will get the treatment it deserves, but a Hollywood drama IS different than an educational/training film.

The fact that the subject is going to be out there in front of the public is very good news.

Popular actors like Sean Connery and Chris O'Donnell are probably more trusted than most politicians and news reporting organizations are -- even though their characters exist within the context of a fantasy.

Perhaps some good will result. "Panic" is not the only possible response... there may be people who are moved to action by increased curiosity and awareness about y2k.

-- Sara Nealy (saran@ptd.net), February 12, 1999.

UH...Are you suggesting that politicians (yuk hack spit) and mainstream media reporters (snicker) operate outside a fantasy world?

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), February 12, 1999.

Nikoli -

Now let's not forget our manners in times of trouble - the correct set of actions is (yuk hack spit WIPE). Judith Martin, where are you when we need you.

I can see it now. "Proper manners in a Anarchistic society", available in bookstores everywhere....

"The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? "-- Benjamin Franklin

-- abcdGoldfish (mnoGoldfish@osar.com), February 12, 1999.

"A man of words and not of deeds Is like a garden full of weeds; A man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds." -BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

E.

-- E. Coli (nunayo@beeswax.com), February 12, 1999.

E -

Ha! Good one. Ol' Ben sure had a way with words. I think he also had the right perspective - work hard, pray hard.

-- abcdGoldfish (mnoGoldfish@osar.com), February 12, 1999.

Goldfish - I love your Franklin quote (but not yours, E). I have to share my fav Franklin quote: "There will be plenty of sleeping in the grave." I think of that when y2k prep/worry has consumed my day and I still have more to do ...

Jeannie

-- jhollander (hollander@ij.net), February 12, 1999.

You said it will be released in the fall? They better show it sooner than that if they expect to make money. By the fall it will already be happening in real life!

-- (@@@.@), February 12, 1999.