TIME magazine has a new article by Alex Altman about the Atlas Shrugged movie, titled “Atlas Shrugged, The Movie: Ayn Rand Fans Get Film Of Their Own.” Since it’s pre-dated for Monday, April 25, 2011, the article must be in their print edition, as well.
It begins:
John Aglialoro is on a quest. Aglialoro, 67, is the CEO of a fitness-equipment company, a former U.S. poker champion and an objectivist â?? a subscriber to Ayn Rand’s doctrine of rational selfishness. In 1992 he bought from Rand’s estate the movie rights to Atlas Shrugged, her 1957 novel about the heroes who prop up society and the parasites who leech off their efforts. His dream was to make a film that honored Rand’s philosophy.
For 20 years the dream eluded him. Studios shied away from the project. Scripts were written and discarded. A deal to have Angelina Jolie play heroine Dagny Taggart fell through. Even Rand’s acolytes feared that a thousand-page doorstop whose emotional climax is a lengthy monologue on the virtues of unfettered capitalism would flop as a film.
See the full article for more.
You gotta love how the writer calls the novel a thousand-page doorstop.
It IS a doorstop if one has no ability to read and think…