The Night Strangler is a television film which first aired on ABC on January 16, 1973 as a sequel to The Night Stalker. The Night Strangler proved almost as popular as its predecessor garnering strong ratings and eventually prompting ABC to order a TV series (neither writer Richard Matheson nor producer/director Dan Curtis was involved in the TV series). In the United States the TV movie ran (without commercials) approximately 74 minutes. ABC planned to release the film overseas as a theatrical release and had additional footage shot rounding out the movie to 90 minutes.