Nat Geo announces ‘Killing Reagan’ for October 16

On March 30, 1981, at 2:27 p.m. six shots were fired from a .22-caliber pistol at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. On one side of the gun was an aimless and deranged young man, misguided by an obsession with an American actress. His intended victim: the U.S. president. Though he failed in his assassination attempt, he succeeded in changing not only a presidency but a man and a marriage.

On Sunday, Oct. 16, National Geographic Channel will go deep inside this harrowing moment in U.S. history, with KILLING REAGAN, produced with Scott Free Productions and based on the New York Times best-selling book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The two-hour movie event is the fourth in a successful partnership between NGC, Scott Free and O’Reilly, with the previous three collaborations — Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus — serving as the network’s three most-watched programs of all time and earning multiple Emmy nominations. The movie will air globally in early 2017 on National Geographic Channels in 171 countries and in 45 languages.

Leading the KILLING REAGAN cast are Tim Matheson (“The West Wing,” “Burn Notice,” “Animal House”) as Ronald Reagan, the 40^th president of the United States, who was struck down only 69 days into his presidency, and Cynthia Nixon (“Sex and the City,” Tony Award for “Rabbit Hole”) as Nancy Reagan, the loyal and protective first lady. Actor and improv comic Kyle More (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “CSI”) portrays John Hinckley Jr., the misguided and mentally unstable would-be assassin. The movie is directed by Rod Lurie (“The Contender,” “Commander in Chief”) from a script written by Oscar-winner Eric Simonson (“A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin”).

“No matter your political leanings, the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan was not just a crucible in history, it didn’t just reset the Reagan presidency, it told us about a man,” said Lurie. “This isn’t so much a political thriller as it is a psychological thriller. We get deep into the head of Reagan and get even deeper into the heart of his love story with Nancy. We get into Hinckley’s insanity, but we also get into the tick-tock of the environment that drove him to want to murder Reagan.”

KILLING REAGAN begins late in the 1980 election campaign as Ronald Reagan (Matheson) and Jimmy Carter battle for the Oval Office. With help from his group of trusted advisors, including Jim Baker III (Geoff Pierson, “Castle,” “Dexter,” “Boardwalk Empire”), Mike Deaver (Jeff Harlan, “Parks and Recreation,” “NCIS”), James Brady (Michael H. Cole, “Dirty Grandpa”) and Edwin Meese (Joel Murray, “Mad Men,” Shameless”), and his fiercely protective wife Nancy (Nixon), Reagan is able to reposition his public persona, easily winning the election. But the early days of his presidency prove rocky as he battles low approval ratings and an unfriendly Congress.

At the same time, 25-year-old Hinckley (More) is increasingly spiraling into mental instability. He ignores his parents’ pleas to seek therapy or to hold down a steady job and instead fixates on actress Jodie Foster. After a disastrous attempt to visit her at Yale, he decides to try and get her attention with an extreme action:  assassinating the president.

On the afternoon of March 30, 1981, at 2:27, these disparate figures collide with each other and history outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Hinckley fires six shots at Reagan and his entourage as they depart an event, striking a local police officer, a Secret Service agent, Brady and the president. The event sent the White House — and the nation — into a chaos that rewrote the course of history: The president’s popularity surged during his recovery, and the assassination attempt forever changed the intimate dynamics of his marriage.

“If Hinckley had never pulled that trigger — if he’d gotten the help he needed to deal with his mental health — this world might be a much different place now,” said Bill O’Reilly. “President Reagan was truly damaged in the early days of his presidency, and this horrific act turned his presidency on its head. It’s a riveting period of history, with effects that reverberated through the whole world.”