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"Atlas Shrugged" Movie

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  • 4 months later...

A new site called "The Strike Productions, Inc" has been launched. It says that Atlas Shrugged is now in pre-production, and that principal photography will begin June 2010 in Los Angeles. The site is owned by a man named Harmon Kaslow.

Harmon Kaslow is a consultant for A-Mark Entertainment. A California native, he graduated from the University of California, Davis and received a law degree from the University of Southern California (USC). Originally an entertainment attorney at the international law firm of Shea & Gould, Kaslow has been actively involved in the entertainment industry for 20+ years and has been credited as an executive producer on more than 15 motion pictures. Prior to AME, he was the President/COO of Kismet Entertainment Group where he was instrumental in a series of successful smaller budget pictures including the cult classic and award winning "Dog Soldiers", considered one of Britain's most successful horror pictures.

Furthermore, Wikipedia says the following:

In May 2010, Brian Patrick O'Toole and John Aglialoro wrote a screenplay adapted from Atlas Shrugged (Part 1) that has been "greenlighted" for production in Los Angeles, California in early June 2010 as an independent motion picture. Harmon Kaslow is producing, Stephen B. Polk is directing, and Ronnie Yeskel is casting the picture.

John Aglialoro is the investor who bought the option to produce the film back in 1992, paying Peikoff over $1 million for full creative control. I think if Aglialoro hadn't started pre-production this summer, all creative control would have reverted to the estate of Ayn Rand.

Edited by ENikolai
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Here's an interview with John Aglialoro, from 2008. A few things have no doubt changed since back then, such as Angelina Jolie's and Vadim Perelman's involvement. In the interview he says that it will be one movie, lasting roughly 2½ hours, but the recent Wikipedia entry says the movie is "part 1".

Edited by ENikolai
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This is the most recent update actually:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/05/atlas-shru...ign/#more-43840

"'Atlas Shrugged' Rights Holder Sets June Production Start Whether Or Not Stars Align"

"John Aglialoro 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."

For almost two decades, Hollywood has tried unsuccessfully to turn Ayn Rand’s 1100 page classic Atlas Shrugged into a feature film with actresses ranging from Angelina Jolie to Charlize Theron to Faye Dunaway. 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.

Aglialoro, CEO of exercise equipment manufacturer Cybex International and UM Holdings, would hardly be the only entrepreneur who uses his resources to make a picture happen, one in which he took on a creative role. David Ellison, son of Oracle's Larry Ellison, made a co-financing deal with Paramount, and one of the first projects from his Skydance slate is the aviation thriller Northern Lights, which casts him as co-star. Dan Pritzker, the billionaire son of Hyatt Hotels chain magnate Jay Pritzker, financed and directed a pair of jazz films: Bolden stars The Hurt Locker's Anthony Mackie as pioneering horn player Buddy Bolden; Louis is an honest to goodness silent film--with dialogue title cards and musical accompaniment--about the childhood of Louis Armstrong. Pritzker is working on a plan to show the latter in venues with a live orchestra. I saw the silent film and thought it was well made, but I have doubts Pritzker will sway the business from its 80 year infatuation with "talkies."

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.

Normally, when there is such a rush to begin production, it's to keep an option on material from expiring.

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.

Edited by CapitalistSwine
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They should not make an AS movie. The Fountainhead movie tried to condense ~700 pages of story into a couple of hours and it came off as melodramatic and having no subtlety at all.

I mean, every scene in that movie was someone directly expressing a philosophical opinion. Henry Cameron dies while telling Roark to give in, switch to Peter Keating telling Roark to give in. Switch to Dominique destroying something beautiful, then she explains why she destroyed, then switch to Gail breaking up there marriage to prove a point about life.

It was awful, not an ounce of subtlety, just the continuous thick layering of theme over and over, like it was some child's morality tale.

Trying to do that with an even larger grander book would come off as looking satirical and cringe worthy.

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Who the hell is Stephen Polk?

Are they seriously letting a rookie director, with no prior films to his credit, direct something of this magnitude? Just because his daddy was once the chair of MGM?

What a great combination, nepotism and Ayn Rand. I'm sure this will turn out well.

Edited by Myself
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I think it is quite possible this could turn out great. First off, they aren't doing it all in one movie, but rather as a series of four, which is great. Second, it is an independent film which means that studios won't get their grubby hands all over it and turn it into the story of how socialism is great or something. Third, it's at least being made, and obviously this guy wants to actually make it and see it get DONE which is great. Sure, might they mess it up? Yeah. But this thing doesn't need a monstrously huge budget. It's trains and people talking, with some scenes in mountains, and cars driving. In terms of actual costly things, I just don't see much of them. And since it is four movies, they'll be able to recover costs over time, as most of the costs of sets and whatnot will be put up in the first movie. Kick-Ass and Serenity were both made for about 30 million dollars, and they turned out great and looked great too. Big names and big budgets can get in the way more than helped, as they have for decades with this project. I'm happy that it will finally be coming to the big screen.

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I can't picture Hollywood doing anything but mercilessly butchering Atlas Shrugged, but maybe it would at least attract some interest in Objectivism.

I agree with the first part, but not the second; if they butcher it, any interest in Objectivism will be corrupted.

My opinion is that, outside of a 2 to 3 season TV series produced with the involvement of the Ayn Rand Center and a sympathetic director and executive producer, it's not going to be a good representation of the novel, much less Ayn Rand's philosophy.

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"Pre-Production of the motion picture based on the Ayn Rand novel "Atlas Shrugged" has become. Stay tuned for more details! "

Wow, I am really impressed. They spelled "become" correctly. Of course, they meant to say "begun".

That might be a bad sign. The web site consists of one sentence, and they screwed it up. oops.;)

Edited by JayR
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It'll be interesting to see how they handle the speech. Even seriously abridged, I can't imagine them simply having the audience sit through even 15 minutes of someone talking (and apparently the uncut speech takes about 3 hours). I imagine there are ways to move large parts of it to other parts of the movie (voiceovers to what is going on for instance). Splitting it up (by having Galt give it on successive nights, and having some "action" occur between the broadcasts) might also work. (Hmmm... I wonder how many people would tune back in when he says, "I have more to say, tune in tomorrow night")

I am sure Ayn Rand herself pondered this issue; I wonder if she recorded her thoughts on the matter. I know she started work on a miniseries script that introduced different characters (including a hippie, possibly a replacement for the so-called intellectuals like Scudder, Eubank, and Pritchett)--she was aware that books and movies are different media and had no intention of being as rigidly bound to the book as some of us would probably expect. I can see the kvetching now, even if the movie by some miracle doesn't butcher the message: "They left out such-and-such" "They had Galt use Francisco's line", blah blah blah....

Oh, yeah. Larry King should play Bertram Scudder.

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The speeches would be a huge problem. Since they are merely a recapitulation of action already shown or discussed, it might be better to omit the speeches altogether. Galt's speech can be implied by the amassed people listening, and maybe a few highlights can be heard, otherwise, I think it's best to omit. Sometimes, a movie just can't follow a book that closely. This is one of those times.

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My opinion is that, outside of a 2 to 3 season TV series produced with the involvement of the Ayn Rand Center and a sympathetic director and executive producer, it's not going to be a good representation of the novel, much less Ayn Rand's philosophy.

I agree with this. An extended mini-series of some kind is the only hope IMO. As far as the speech, it would work if it was played throughout the entire movie, periodically over scenes without other dialogue, with the scenes corresponding to what Galt is saying.

They should try to incorporate Sting in the movie also. Maybe as Galt.

This was a joke. In case anyones heart stopped beating.

j..

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  • 3 weeks later...

I think this is the perfect time for this movie. The federal government is starting to take direct control of Wall Street and the press, two of the key components in Rand's list of what had to happen for her to consider the U.S. fallen to dictatorship. I think all that is left is for one party rule to be established. Hopefully Obama will have screwed things up so bad by the time a possible second term comes around that he will be booted before he has a chance to make that happen. If this movie does a good job of showing what happens when the federal govt takes complete control of business, then I think we can mark it as a success. Rather than try to get in all of the book or explain all of the philosophy, I think nailing this one key component will be sufficient. There should also be plenty of allegory to the current administration, maybe going so far as casting the president as a major character, and a villain, which I believe wasn't the case in the book.

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