Zero Day

Zero Day is a political thriller that feels like it was made for people who have lived and breathed Washington, DC for decades. That would be me. It’s not just another spy drama or conspiracy show—it’s a reflection of how the real power structures work, the unseen forces that shape national security and the uneasy relationship between government, media and the tech world.

At its core, Zero Day is about a massive cyberattack that throws the country into crisis. The attack exposes vulnerabilities not just in technology but in leadership, in institutions, in the very trust the American public has in its government. Robert De Niro plays a former U.S. president pulled back into the fray to investigate what really happened. And if you’ve been around DC long enough, you know that former presidents never truly step away from the game. There are always favors owed, grudges held and alliances shifting behind the scenes.

It acknowledges that Washington isn’t just about policy, it’s about relationships. The people in power are always balancing ambition with responsibility, ideology with self-interest.

For those of us who have watched real-world cyber threats evolve—election interference, data leaks, ransomware attacks on hospitals and government agencies—the premise isn’t far-fetched. The idea that a well-coordinated cyberattack could bring America to its knees? That’s not fiction. That’s something national security experts have been warning about for years. The show captures the paranoia, the uncertainty and the sheer power of information warfare in a way that feels alarmingly real.

What Zero Day gets right, more than anything, is the tone of DC in a crisis. The way people scramble for answers but also for control. The way narratives are spun before facts are fully known. The way old alliances come back into play when the stakes are high enough. It’s not just a story about a cyberattack—it’s a story about power and in this town, power is everything.

Hollywood on the Potomac chatted with producer Jonathan Glickman and queried friends who have also lived and breathed DC for decades.

“Q: What inspired the concept of Zero Day and how did the project come together?

A: Growing up with a father in the political world (his father Dan Glickman was also CEO of the Motion Picture Association)  and a mother in the arts, I was naturally drawn to stories that intersect the two—especially in film. One of the most formative movie experiences of my youth was seeing the re-release of The Manchurian Candidate at the Key Theater in Georgetown. That John Frankenheimer Cold War thriller, famously pulled from circulation by Frank Sinatra after the Kennedy assassination due to its eerie thematic parallels, left a lasting impression on me.

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