On the Beach

On the Beach is an apocalyptic television movie released in 2000, airing originally on Showtime. It is a remake of the 1959 film, and is based on the 1957 novel by Nevil Shute. It starred Armand Assante, Bryan Brown, and Rachel Ward. It was directed by Russell Mulcahy. On the Beach updates the setting of the story to the then-future year of 2006, starting with placing the crew on the fictional Los Angeles-class submarine USS Charleston . The USS Charleston in On the Beach is a 688i variant of the Los Angeles-class and is equipped with a caterpillar drive. The Morse code signal picked up by... the submarine crew in the original novel and film was updated to an automated digital broadcast powered by a solar-powered laptop computer. The cause of the nuclear war was due to the standoff between United States of America and the People's Republic of China due to the latter blockading and invading Taiwan. China then attacked the United States, which struck back, each using nuclear weapons.
more