I’m astonished this project is still moving forward, as I’ve been hearing rumors of a proposed film of * Atlas Shrugged * ever since I can remember and nothing ever came of them. Rumor and speculation has it that Brad Pitt and Angelina will star as John Galt and Dagny Taggart. Lionsgate, which had the recent hit * Crash, * has definitely signed on as the distributor, and it seems that John V. Hart, who scripted * Contact, * has completed a screenplay.
Question: How mightily do you think this will suck? Are we talkin’ tornado-strength suckitude here, or will it reach the black hole level? ‘Cuz I can’t imagine any way this bombastic, blatantly propagandistic 1,100 page turkey could ever be turned into a watchable film. I’m thinkin’ * Battlefield Earth. * What sayeth thou?
I suspect that some of the quantuum physics experts here on Straight Dope may stop in to assist us in the incredible universe-staggering energy suck that might come to pass.
Then again, more complex novels have somehow been reduced to beautiful meaningful articulate visuals blended with carefully crafted words.
" Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL. HAL. HAL. Open the Pod Bay Doors, please. "
Is it just me, or does it seem odd that they would star in a vehicle that is so completely antithical to their belief system?
Again, it might be possible to make a good movie out of this, but I’m not sure how you could go about it. It seems impossibly dated and just stuffed to the brim with really boring scenes. Everything meanigful (such as it is) happens internally to the characters as opposed to externally.
While I was reading AS I thought that about the first third of it, through Dagny’s running the first train on the John Galt Line, would make a pretty good movie. And I’m sure watching Brad getting strapped down and tortured would be loads of fun too.
I don’t envy the poor screenwriter who lands the job of trying to boil down Galt’s 60-page radio address into something manageable for the screen.
The quality of the book has very little to do with the quality of the movie. “Jaws” is a pretty bad book, but a great movie. “A Clockwork Orange” is self-indulgent crap on paper, but really worked on film. “The Silence of the Lambs” was an okay book, but a great movie. “The Godfather” is often cited as one of the greatest movies ever made, but the novel is not one of the greatest novels ever written (although it’s not BAD.) Conversely, I am sure you can think of many books that were pretty good to great and bad movies that were made from them. And in some cases, like “Starship Troopers,” the movie is really nothing like the book at all.
“Battlefield Earth” the movie was actually a LOT worse than the book. The book was schlocky sci-fi but it had its moments, and had a definite sense of humour. The movie, of course, is a legend of cinematic incompetence, and deserves to be.
If you have to make a Rand novel into a movie, doesn’t it seem that “Fountainhead” would be a better choice?
I always thought Fountainhead got Rand’s point across much more succinctly (how could it not), subtly (how could it not), and interestingly (how could it not) than Atlas Shrugged.
I know it’s already been made (in 1949) but that never stopped anyone before.
Given that I saw Brad Pitt on Charlie Rose one evening a while back talking about architecture, I’d also think Fountainhead would be a more likely movie.
Well, of course “The Fountainhead” has already been made into a movie, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. That’s all I can add to this discussion, as I have never read either book, although, of course “Atlas Shrugged” is pretty notorious.
Those poor screenwriters…that is going to be one hell of a project to adapt that to anything under four hours long - and even that will be cutting it short.
Perhaps they should get Peter Jackson to do a three film version of the story.
Actually, I think the movie could be more successful than the novel. Entire chapters and characters would have to be omitted (something of which Rand would never have approved), and the result would be much more digestible. But Og knows what they’re gonna do with Galt’s speech.
Too bad it wasn’t done when Redford and Dunaway were the right age.
Indeed. For all her speechifying about artistic integrity, she didn’t object to some significant plot point changes, including Dagny breaking off her engagement to Peter, instead of divorcing him, and Gal shooting himself, instead of living on as a broken man… and divorcing Dagny. Evidently divorce in movies was quite the no-no. Suicide was okay, though.
To make the movie relevant, they’ll have to change it from the individual’s struggle against communism to, say, the individual’s struggle against religious fundamentalism, with the key discovery being not a fuel-free motor but, say, a disease-curing method of stem-cell-based genetic engineering. Yeah, that’ll get butts in seats…
Rand may have been willing to change the plot for the film version of The Fountainhead, but I doubt that extended to inserting characters from Atlas Shrugged.
