The 12 extensive interviews that President Richard Nixon did with journalist David Frost will be released digitally for the first time in the U.S. courtesy of FilmRise, who’ve picked up the exclusive U.S. digital and DVD rights.
The interviews, which equal nearly 29 hours of footage, were conducted over four weeks, beginning March 23, 1977, and were edited into four 90-minute programs that were broadcast in May. Nixon had resigned in 1974 and retreated from public life until Frost proposed the interviews, for which Nixon was paid. Nixon’s admissions in the interviews led to widespread public belief that he had indeed obstructed justice, something he continued to deny until his death — his successor, President Gerald Ford, had pardoned him.
The interviews were the basis of Peter Morgan’s play “Frost/Nixon,” which was adapted into the 2008 film directed by Ron Howard starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon.
“We are so thrilled to release material of such high historical importance for the first time digitally,” said FilmRise CEO Danny Fisher. “The Frost/Nixon interviews will now be available to new and younger audiences who were never able to watch them before.”
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