Smallpox 2002

Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon is a fictional docudrama produced by Wall to Wall, showing how a single act of bioterrorism leads to terrifying consequences globally.

Smallpox 2002
Also known as	Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon
Genre	Docudrama
Written by	Simon Chinn Daniel Percival
Directed by	Daniel Percival
Starring	Bolen High Leigh Zimmerman Tara Hugo
Narrated by	Brian Cox
Composer	Andy Price
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
Production
Executive producer	Jonathan Hewes
Producer	Simon Chinn
Running time	90 minutes
Original release
Network	BBC Two
Release	5 February 2002 (2002-02-05)

Background

The premise of it was one man who, in 2002, creates the smallpox virus himself, infects himself, and touches ten people in New York City. This eventually leads to a pandemic across the world that is later defeated, but not before 60 million people are killed.

The film was commissioned before the September 11 attacks and is presented in the form of a fictional documentary, including false interviews and stock footage. The tagline for the movie was, "Drama, until it happens".

Reception

Newspaper reviews of the documentary were mixed, varying from "a sick stunt" to "extraordinarily good".^[1] The docudrama proved very popular with viewers, attracting 3.4m viewers, 15% of the audience, to a 9:00pm slot on BBC2 according to overnight returns.^[2]

Notes

• The film was renamed Smallpox when it aired on FX on 2 January 2005.