The Loch Ness Monster of libertarianism — the “Atlas Shrugged” movie — has apparently been sighted again, reports Mike Fleming of Deadline New York:
John Aglialoro, the entrepreneur who 17 years ago paid $1 million to option the book rights, is tired of the futility and is taking matters into his own hands. He’s announced that he is financing a June 11 production start in Los Angeles for the first of what he said will be four films made from the book.
Aglialoro, who had a hand in writing the script by Brian O’Tool, is taking on this ambitious plan with an unproven director, and is weeks away from production without stars to play Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, John Galt and the other roles. He’s moving forward despite the conventional wisdom that without stars, it could ultimately be the audience that shrugged.
[ . . . ]
Atlas Shrugged will be directed by Stephen Polk, an actor/producer whose father, Louis Polk, was once MGM chairman. He considers Atlas Shrugged to be his feature directing debut, though Polk acknowledges he stepped in and helmed the 2008 indie Baggage. Aglialoro was unavailable to speak directly, but sent a missive indicating that he’s courting actresses like Theron and Maggie Gyllenhaal to play Taggart. Sources in the camps of both actresses were aware of the project, but neither is planning to go to work on Atlas Shrugged next month.
Polk said they are not intimidated to film a storied book even if stars don’t align. “For more than 15 years, this has been at studios and there has been a whole dance around who’ll play the iconic roles,” Polk said. “Making it an independent film was the game-changer. Everybody is saying, how can you shoot this movie without a star? We’re shooting it because it’s a good movie with great characters. We’ve been in pre-production for months, but kept it a mystery. Part of the reason is because there’s so much crap about how you need a great big budget and stars. We aren’t looking for big names to trigger press or financing.”
Polk said that the idea of cutting through the bureaucracy and just getting started is consistent with the book’s themes of capitalism and taking entrepreneurial risk. The story centers around Taggart, a railroad executive who watches society crumble around her as government takes control over industry and innovators begin to disappear.
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I smell a conspiracy.
Nice that IP, something Ayn Rand agreed with, can be used to prevent a film version of her ideas from every reaching human beings anywhere in the universe.
I can’t wait for the movie.
Mises.org is too much of a purist. Tell me, what in life is perfect?
Only this website/organisation. And the Apple Computer company. In comparison to these two outfits the rest of us are just mucking-about.
I’m semi-serious. There are two mysteries involved here.
1. How did these guys do such an amazing job?
2. Why hasn’t someone snapped up young Jeffrey Tucker to be a bigshot CEO in some monster corporation, and with Rockwell as a high-paid consultant?
I’ve never seen anything quite like this place and I’d only put Apple Computer ahead of it and no-one else.
Since when do you need “stars” to make a good movie?
Let’s hope that they cut out the Galt speech.
Yeah, at least 35 pages of it… They better just leave ¨A=A¨ and nothing more.
Thank goodness. I’m not the only one. I skipped over 90% of the speech when I read AS.
I disagree! I re-read the speech at least once a year. Reaonable men can differ, of course, but I do encourage you to check your premises. For your edification and reading pleasure, here’s the speech in toto.
Media and society have a mutually influential relationship. This film speaks to today’s state of the world and darkly hints at how the government can go wrong when it takes control of the industry and stifles innovation.
The young congressional candidate Ryan Brumberg, running against Carolyn Maloney for New York’s 14th district, proposes a smarter way to run the government, fixing loopholes and inefficiencies in current fiscal programs for a healthier American economy, and therefore a healthier American state. I urge you all to his website http://www.brumberg2010.com to read his proposals in detail and see how he plans on running the government in a SMART way.
I kind of like the version running around in my small brain. I might even see it again this summer.
Surely its got to be a big three-part deal like Lord Of The Rings. Maybe they ought to have pitched it to Peter Jackson from New Zealand. I think the first half is about the most exciting amazing story I’ve ever read. But I’ve got deep problems with some of it towards the end. Lets hope that embarrassing scene where Francesco goes to water, when Galt tells him the chick cannot stay at his place ….. and he starts babbling a lot of nonsense…….. Lets hope that scenes like that get excised with extreme prejudice.
They ought to make Midas Mulligan a substantial hero, and make a lot of the villains corrupt bankers. Make it a bit more topical. Instead of Hank Paulson you could have someone named Henry Pilson. Instead of Lloyd Blankfien you could have Boyd Frankstein. Instead of Alan Greenspan you could have Benedict Traitor.
Stuff like that.
The chances of this ending well or at least breaking even is slim… If it does get made, I sure hope it’s indie, low-budget, and largely ignored by the MSM (very unlikely if the movie isn’t completely pure win). That way, the people who will appreciate it get to along with muting the attacks.
And the attacks will come. No matter how awesome the message, the messenger was not its deserved champion.
“The chances of this ending well or at least breaking even is slim… ”
Yeah but thats Okay too. You had an animated attempt at Lord Of The Rings at one stage. People thought it inadequate. But this is a platform to stand on, to make the more valuable version later on.
I don’t think we ought to be antagonistic to her or her book. I suspect we all owe her a great deal, even if we can pick holes in her act. Even some of the people she antagonised probably gained a great deal from her. She was a woman after all and deserves some charitable thoughts. She was an amazing woman when it comes down to it.
In this day and age one of two things would happen:
1. They’d warp it so much that it’d end up being a celebration of collectivism as opposed to individuality and freedom.
2. They’d make it so accurate that in this intellectual and ideological climate it’d be deemed the second coming of “The Birth of a Nation.”
I say, let it stay in development hell; I loathed Gary Cooper’s turn in “The Fountainhead” because frankly, I hate architects.
With our non-reading population growing this movie(s) is much needed. I will be first in line. No stars needed for me to be a fan. p.s. I loved and often re-read Galt’s speech and I have it on my ipod and listen to it regularly.
I read Atlas Shrugged while in college, and focused heavily on the interpersonal relationships–the way that characters would manipulate each other using the other’s good intentions. It was life-changing for me.
I picked it up recently and re-read it because I remembered the collapse of the economy at the end, and the “aristocracy of pull.” I wanted to focus this time on the economics of the work. It is pretty funny to see President Obama getting mad at British Petroleum (one of his larger corporate donors) for its inability to seal an oil geyser. It’s like when James Taggart berates people for being unable to communicate without copper wire. It’s not that they aren’t trying–it’s physically impossible.
One final quick thought: Ayn Rand was no Shakespeare. Her characters are flat and one-dimensional. They don’t make choices; they serve the plot. That having been said, she communicated classical liberalism to generations of readers in a new and exciting medium. Whatever disagreements people might have with her about “objectivism,” and intellectual-monopoly rights and anything else, the movement still owes her quite a bit.
-David
I thinks that its really hard to make quality movies these days which can entertain the audience. Film makers can make award winning movies but its much harder to make movies which can purely Entertain the audience.
Perhaps it will become a question for the ages: just how many crappy movies can one make from a crappy piece of literature?
What Bioshock wasnt enough? Now we need a movie as well?
I’m an old movies fan but something like that would definitely light up my curiosity. Will keep track of this until the movie’s out
Now that 24 hours have passed and some 20 people have commented, and I’ve had a chance to sleep on Mr. French’s scathing ‘review’, I’ve concluded that his commentary on the awarding of the Nobel to F.A. Hayek might have begun with:
“What’s the big deal? He had to share it with a second mediocre economist.”
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