IIRC, Dagny is blonde. But hey, what actress has not changed her hair color in some film or another?
Meaning… I’ve been picturing Dagny with the wrong hair color all these years. My vote goes to Frances.
“I’ve been picturing Dagny with the wrong hair color all these years.”
Goodbeam:
Just think how fresh it’ll be when you read A.S. next time! I’m sure the book will take on a whole new meaning for you.
Douglas and Ford are too old to be Reardon, approximately 45 years old not 55 or 60+.
Tom Hanks as Eddie, yes. Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Dagney’s brother, yes. (Sorry can’t remember his name and too lazy to look it up.) Frances McDormand as Dagney, no, love her but she is not sleek enough. (and I always imagined her as a red-head/brunette.)
Francisco is tough, he’s the one I fell in love with and can really not picture anyone playing him, not even Antonio (besides he’s too old now, 10 years ago, maybe, not now.
I’ll think on it some more tomorrow, maybe I’ll come up with a few more of the ‘cast’.
Ok, but the thing is, you’re only going to talk stars into doing it if they are conservatives. So who’s out there that’s a conservative that could fit the role?
Hank Reardon - Bruce Willis
Fransisco - Brad Pitt
Eddie - Tom Hanks
Still trying to figure out what to do with Harrison Ford, Fred Thompson and John Malkovitch.
I’m not a conservative. I’m more conservative than I was 20 years ago but have you met my family? My brother and I are the curiosities of my family for our liberal views, by the way, he’s the one I got the book from when I was 12 or 13.
Willis - too old, not tall enough.
Pitt - need a latino
Hanks - yes!
Fred Thompson - Wyatt of the Wyatt Oil Fields.
Crap, brain fritzed(sp) out again.
It doesn’t fit very well. Christianity is a little too slavish and altruistic for the Rand philosophy, objectivism. John Galt specifically targets it as something people believe even though they know it’s false just because they feel like believing something. But if you cut the speech out almost entirely, there isn’t much left in Atlas Shrugged that necessarily runs counter to Christianity, since there are some Christians I know who mostly agree with Rand aside from that point.
Sam:
Don’t underestimate the power of $$. Plenty of stars cross political boundaries. Think Arlington Road. Hell, look at Ed Asner in MTM, for that matter.
They don’t mind playing conservative characters, but would they want to star in a movie that calls liberals evil? That most liberals hate with a passion?
$$$$
Oh, great. I can see it now:
“Francesco swept Dagny into his arms and made wild, passionate, unrestrained love to her. Then, suddenly, the two of them were filled with guilt and shame because they weren’t married! They immediately bowed down on their knees and repented of their horrible sins, begging for the forgiveness of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who ordered them to do 100 hours of community service handing out Jack Chick tracts in Taggart Transcontinental’s many railroad stations.”
[repeat with Hank Rearden and John Galt]
Dagny Taggart: Ashley Judd or Jodie Foster
Hank Rearden : Russell Crowe
John Galt: an unknown new-comer
Francisco d’Anconia: Antonio Banderas
Jim Taggart: Alan Rickman
Ragnar Danneskjold: Viggo Mortenson
Robert Stadler: Christopher Walken
Lillian Rearden: Emily Watson
You know, it is funny, but in both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Rand planned for (and wrote for) there to be a sympathetic priest type character. In both books she changed her mind at the last minute.
Like the others said, the book is just to damn long to be made into a movie. It simply must be done in a mini-series format. I hope that when making the movie they work with the Ayn Rand Institute to at least get abridged versions of the speeches made.
Although it seems silly at first, a complete reading of the Galt speech would be a really cool extra on a DVD.
Wow, those are some great casting ideas! I would like to add that Harrison Ford would make the best Hank Reardon that I can think of.
Actually, I did, on the very first page. Had I any idea that thread would get a billion or so hits, I would have written more than one paragraph.