The Final Countdown
When a modern nuclear aircraft carrier is thrust back to 1941 on the eve of Pearl Harbor, its commander must choose between altering history to save countless lives or preserving the timeline at unimaginable cost.
“Trapped outside the boundaries of time and space... 102 aircraft... 6,000 men... all missing.”
Synopsis
During routine maneuvers near Hawaii in 1980, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is caught in a strange vortex-like storm, throwing the ship back in time to 1941—mere hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 22
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Robert K LambertShot by Victor J KemperScored by John ScottDesigned by Fernando Carrere
Box Office
1980 · Box office
⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 1.4× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$16.6M
Also known as
- Der letzte Countdownde
- El final de la cuenta atráses
- Nimitz, retour vers l'enferfr
- Countdown dimensione zeroit
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Cast & Crew
22 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Kirk Douglas
as Capt. Matthew Yelland
Martin Sheen
as Warren Lasky
Kirk Douglas Nm0000018
as Capt. Matthew Yelland
Katharine Ross
as Laurel Scott
James Farentino
as Mr.Tideman
Ron O Neal
as Cdr. Dan Thurman
Charles Durning
as Sen. Samuel Chapman
Victor Mohica
as Black Cloud
James Coleman
as Lt. Perry
Soon Tek Oh
as Simura
Joe Lowry
as Cdr. Damon
Directors
1Writers
4Producers
1Other crew
5Parents Guide
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