Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' Movie: Will It Work As A Film? (VIDEO)

The big screen production of Ayn Rand's legendary novel "Atlas Shrugged" is well under-way, and Reason.tv has a behind-the-scenes look.

In the video, director Paul Johansson (whose biggest credit is "One Tree Hill") talks about the struggles and trepidations he and the rest of the crew faced while adapting one of the most successful books of the last 100 years.

"Whenever it comes to Ayn Rand's material," Johannson said, "I think that a movie that doesn't get made in 53 years, either people don't know what the story is that they're going to tell, there's a battle on that, or it's just a control issue, or because these characters are so iconic, people are afraid."

Continuing the trend, actor Grant Bowler ("Lost," "True Blood," "Ugly Betty"), who plays Henry Rearden, veers into discussion of measuring up to lofty expectations.

"Will people who love Ayn Rand love the way I do Readen?" Bowler said. "Maybe."

The current adaptation in production is reportedly only "Part One," and covers just the first 100 pages of the novel. It is scheduled for release in 2011.

WATCH:

Comments

[Don Kiss]

02:25 PM on 09/28/2010

I think the reason the Left and the Right hate Ayn Rand is because she exposed their ideologies for the nonsense that they are.

[andrewclunn]

03:15 PM on 09/08/2010

How to make another comment bashing Ayn Rand.

Step 1: Straw man argument against here views.
Step 2: Bad plot synopsis of Atlus Shrugged showing that I haven't actually read the book.
Step 3: Just sit back and wait for the praise from like-minded liberal readers.

[roger37]

01:29 AM on 08/24/2010

i tried to read this sometime in the early 60's, when it came out in paperback. I got about halfway through it, but by that time I had thrown the book across the room so many times that it finally came apart. I swept the whole mass of paper up and threw it in the garbage.

I read somewhere since, that Ayn Rand testified before HUAC in the early 50's that, "In the Soviet Union, the children never smile."

[casssax]

02:46 PM on 08/24/2010

Funny, I was listening to NPR on the way home yesterday and they did a piece on tourism in Russia. They said one of the main complaints people had, other than never being able to go anywhere without your designated tour guide, was that no one ever smiles. They all just scowl at tourists.

[roger37]

03:02 PM on 08/24/2010

That may very well be true--but I can't conceive of children not smiling at all. In Ayn Rand's looney world, everyone was as dark and strange as her.

[AlPal3]

11:40 PM on 08/23/2010

Atlas Shrugged is a boring book. Since it didn't work as a book, why would it work as a movie?

[sph272]

02:48 PM on 08/23/2010

So, will part 3 just be that boring 80 page screed?

[addisonsteele]

02:45 PM on 08/23/2010

It doesn't work as a book, why should it work as a movie?

[MoreOptions]

03:06 PM on 08/23/2010

it doesn't even work as a philosophy. maybe if they turned it into a farce about Fox

[roger37]

01:30 AM on 08/24/2010

That's what Fox "News" is!

[kiwieagle]

04:35 PM on 08/23/2010

That's the first thing I thought!

[Ex-Kindergartner]

02:16 PM on 08/23/2010

Good grief. I would pay money to get OUT of THAT theater.

Keep the popcorn...just let me OUT!

[winkin]

02:07 PM on 08/23/2010

Ayn Rand gave us Alan Greenspan, who - almost single handedly - destroyed our economy.
That says it all.

[WarriorLemming]

12:38 AM on 08/24/2010

"One of her inner circle" according to wiki.....thanks for teaching me that never knew that before. :)

f&f

[studlyguy]

02:02 PM on 08/23/2010

Ayn Rand wasn't a human being I've said this before ,have you see those videos of her online ,,I believe whe was a alien from another planet cause that was very strange looking person ,and I heard she lived off making other people's live miserable,so making a movie of this horrid women's book, sounds like very bad move,cause we're seeing the results of her followers ,who've taken her thoughts to heart,and now America is on it's way too third world country,and that alien Ayn Rand would be so proud of her cultist who've taken philosphers Ayn Rand thoughts and put them to action.

[roger37]

03:03 PM on 08/24/2010

She vant to bite your NECK! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

[Seaborn75]

01:58 PM on 08/23/2010

And the winner of the 2011 Golden Globe for 'Best Comedy' is.....

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

01:42 PM on 08/23/2010

Is it me, or does the director look like he's having major 2nd thoughts about undertaking this project? He looks really nervous.

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

01:37 PM on 08/23/2010

Rand's worldview proceeds from developmental arrest in the majority of the most crucial cognitive domains. Such people thrive on a primitive and competitive egocentrism that willingly mistakes winning a race to the bottom with achievement. They justify their spoils with the presumption that they are more deserving than their "lesser" brothers. They think individualism is expressed by an overconsumptive lifestyle and success by economic rank. But their particular worldview proceeds from what we call "psychologically motivated cognition" rather than any insight into intelligence, themselves, or others.

The pathology is prevalent and it seeks validation of its closed loop by the power of wealth above all. It shouldn't surprise anyone that there are many such mentalities out there condemning their arch enemy; an equitable society that sees into them too deeply because its individuals are far more developed than the Ayn Rands of this world. Don't mistake their prevalence and consistency for anything but the collectivizing nature of similar pathalogy. Now what does it mean to be an individual again Mr. Galt........Mr. Roarke?

[sombrero]

01:51 PM on 08/23/2010

"Such people thrive on a primitive and competitive egocentrism that willingly mistakes winning a race to the bottom with achievement."

Best description I've read to date, fanned

[WarriorLemming]

12:47 AM on 08/24/2010

I admit I'm just learning the finer details of this womans beliefs and how her philosophy is used by some extremist groups to perpetuate their hateful and deluded agenda. I'm saving your post to cross reference as I read more about this persons life, thanks for your insight. f&f

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

01:32 PM on 08/23/2010

Will it work as a film?

Uh, no. It didn't work as a book, and it ain't gonna work as a film. The book is so simplistically written (all laissez fair individuals are good, everyone else wimpy socialists, speeches that go on for days, and a stupid tagline "Who is John Galt?") that the film will be an unintentional laugh riot.

[TheOuroborus]

01:18 PM on 08/23/2010

Rand was a horrible and heinous human being (if human could be applied to her). Even people that today follow her "eat the poor" philosophy couldn't stand her when she was alive. Our world today IS her vision of the shadow society that runs things in Shrugged. A small group of meglo-maniacal uber-wealthy frying up Chinese babies to have with their eggs and toast each morning. The rest of all of us are putzes in the scheme. Her vision of extreme narcissism should be spit at, not made into a movie. That's why it's been 53 years. I hope this film is an EPIC FAIL.

[WarriorLemming]

01:54 PM on 08/23/2010

f&f

[oldguru]

01:54 PM on 08/23/2010

The people who worship at the altar of Rand read her diatribes the same way they read the bible.....only to justify their own greed, judgementalism and selfishness. They need to understand where Rand came from, and what her motivations were.

[kiwieagle]

04:37 PM on 08/23/2010

And the Constitution. It's all the inerrant word of god, the holy triumverate of "The Founders", "The Bible", and "Ayn Rand".

[Steven Slate]

10:05 AM on 09/06/2010

It is a good idea to understand where she came from. She witnessed firsthand the destruction and misery caused by statist policies. She went to school under the communists and learned the full philosophical roots of their system. She was uniquely prepared to show us where we could be making the same errors.

[Ghost Story]

01:00 PM on 08/23/2010

It won't work because Ayn Rand's premise is faulty.

She posits that there is a finite number of industry leaders and if they were to "strike", industry would collapse.

In the world we all live in, when a leader moves on they are immediately replaced.

Narcissists of the world, hear our plea: don't let the door hit you on the but on your way out.

You won't be missed, not for one second.