Sunday, March 06, 2011

Atlas frugged


Yay--more Atlas Shrugged news!:
10 questions with the producer of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ John Aglialoro

Some thought it might never happen.

The cancellation of According to Jim?
Others hoped it wouldn’t.

Season 26 of The Real World is holding auditions at Hooters this weekend. No, really.
But now John Aglialoro has done it.

Well, I certainly hope he cleans up.
He has produced a cinematic adaptation of “Atlas Shrugged,” the philosopher Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, which will open in theaters nationwide on April 15 (yes, tax day). ...

"Philosopher Ayn Rand" if by "philosopher" you mean "crappy novelist" or, perhaps, "sociopath."
Written in 1957, “Atlas Shrugged” has sold somewhere between 7 and 8 million copies in the United States. In 2009, sales experienced a dramatic spike, selling half a million copies and remaining at the top of a variety of best seller lists.

It is only fitting then that a movie version would follow. Two years earlier, in 2007, rumors began circulating that Angelina Jolie had been cast already as the novel’s heroine, Dagny Taggart. Indeed, Lionsgate Entertainment produced a version of the movie starring Jolie, though it never went into production.

Um, how's that again? (I see a huge future for you in right-wing media, by the way.)

I won't bore you with the rest, other than this choice bit of Q&A:
Have you decided how you’ll tackle John Galt’s epic speech [TVB note: It goes on for approximately 70 pages, and, when Rand was alive, she is said to have demanded that any film based on the book would have to feature the entire speech] in part three?

Well, I’m looking at a number of different things. Having John Galt give that speech, it might be in a casino environment. It might be that he is at a mountain retreat, rather than being where he is captured, not…that violent scene at the end. But we’re going to take a look. It doesn’t have to copy just that.

No, it absolutely will be a concentrate of entertaining words with a total, philosophic... But, you know, part three could be a musical... like a Les Miserables kind of a musical. That’s part of the impact and I guess I haven’t said this publicly yet, but I’m looking at it completely different if part three is a musical with quality music that’s done in a certain way that people will like. I mean, if you saw the play Les Miserable without the music, and then with the music, you may go in there saying, ‘oh hell, I would never want to see that great book in a musical.’ That’s going to shock a lot of people to see part three be a musical, and part two may be very different from part three and very different from part one. It has to be new, you know... We get a freshness, a vitality about it, and yet it has the same, rock-solid principles and philosophies that we all know and love.

Fortunately, Tbogg has stepped forward to provide lyrics.


UPDATE: I'm assuming that if Atlas actually does frug, it will look something like this:





3 comments:

Grammarian@mindspring.com said...

Oh. My. Pysical universe with no theological purpose.

MsYvone said...

I remember reading the book, but I don't remember one thing about it... wait, crap. architects? or is that the Fountainhead? oh well. Back to my Tolkein.

Jim Donahue said...

That's "Fountainhead."