Families of the doomed K-19 submarine crew are to receive a share of the profits from the US film K-19: The Widowmaker.

One percent of the box office proceeds from the blockbuster will be donated to survivors and victims' widows, according to Gevorg Nersesyan, director of the Russian company distributing the film.

The film, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, is about a 1961 reactor meltdown on board a Soviet nuclear submarine.

Forty-two sailors were exposed to nuclear radiation when the submarine's crew were forced to repair the reactor's cooling system. Eight of them died.

Liam Neeson co-stars in the film

The survivors and the victims' families will be the first to see the film in Russia, Nersesyan told the Izvestiya newspaper in an interview published on Friday.

The film will arrive in Russia cinemas in late September or early October.

Stormy relations

Relations between the movie's creators and the K-19 survivors have been troubled.

The ex-sailors denounced the original script as libellous and insulting.

The script was later brought in line with the sailors' recommendations, the first deputy head of the navy's chief of staff Vladislav Ilyin told Izvestiya.

"Now all names of the participants in the events have been changed," Mr Ilyin said.

"The script was written after a publicly known historical fact and nobody can infringe on the rights of a movie maker to film a historic event."