There are two groups of movie fans slowly emerging: those who groan at the thought of a movie adaptation of Atlas Shruggged, and those who can't wait another minute to see the damn thing. Ayn Rand's massively long, pro-capitalist screed has attracted devoted followers and haters ever since it was published, but it's never been made into a movie. Vadim Perelman, who directed the acclaimed House of Sand and Fog, has been planning an adaptation for years.
Now ComingSoon.net has confirmed that, even though there seems to have been no progress in the last year, Atlas Shrugged is still going forward. And yes, Angelina Jolie is still attached. Apparently Perelman is polishing up the script, and Lionsgate wants the movie to head into production sometime in December.
Jolie is set to play Dagny Taggart, a powerful railroad executive who must cope when all the “great minds” of the world go on strike. The idea of Rand's book is that society is mooching off the talents of the greatest thinkers and artists, and those who “deserve” greatness should get more recognition from society. Needless to say, Rand was fiercely anti-communist and spent a lot of time in her books writing about philosophy rather than plot.
I haven't read Atlas Shrugged but I have read The Fountainhead, and as much as I admire Rand's writing and her powerful stories, it's hard to imagine how to bring either of those books to the screen with the philosophy intact. After all, Hollywood movies intentionally appeal to a mass audience... the same kind of mass audience Rand denounces in her books. Yeah, it's tricky. Though maybe if Angelina insults the majority of Americans we'll stop seeing her on the cover of US Weekly, which would be a favor to us all.
