'Atlas Shrugged' Film Turns To Tea Party For Support

The marketing team behind the film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, the first of a three-part series based on Ayn Rand's cult classic novel about the dangers of government intervention, hopes the Tea Party movement will turn out in droves this weekend.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, many Tea Party faithful have attended advanced screenings and praised the film for adhering to Rand's core principles, many of which have become lynchpins of the movement's cause. One Tea Party email circulating in California promoted the film's message and release date, making a request to supporters to mark their calendars for a "celebration of capitalism."

Over the past forty years, multiple filmmakers and star names - Angelina Jolie being one of the most recent - were attached to the project, but current director Paul Johansson is the first to actually get a crack at it.

Johansson, himself a lifelong admirer of Rand's, told The HR that if the film does not succeed in theaters, he won't ever make another film.

Unfortunately, the critical reception for the film thus far has been rather abysmal. "I suspect only someone very familiar with Rand's 1957 novel could understand the film at all," Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun Times. "For the rest of us, it involves a series of business meetings in luxurious retro leather-and-brass board rooms and offices, and restaurants and bedrooms that look borrowed from a hotel no doubt known as the Robber Baron Arms."

"Part one of a trilogy that may never see completion, this hasty, low-budget adaptation would have Ayn Rand spinning in her grave," wrote Peter Dubruge in Variety. Bill Goodykoontz went further in the Arizona Republic, writing that "the acting is so poor and the story so badly told that the viewer's feelings about Rand's novel -- an epic ode to free-market fundamentalism -- are almost immaterial."

Still, the film may find footing with the throngs of Rand admirers in this country. A 1991 poll from the Library of Congress found that, for Americans, Atlas Shrugged is the second most influential book in history. Behind the Bible.

Comments

[daniele7ster]

02:41 PM on 05/25/2011

Another reason NOT to see i t...

[wwilcox]

08:41 PM on 05/18/2011

I very much doubt that the majority of Randians have ever read Atlas Shrugged. The premise of rugged individuality is seductive to those who live small, inconsequential lives, so why muddle the issue with specifics? Randians will not flock to the movie because they are embarrassed that they are confused by it. They do understand TV wrestling though, and can quote stats like the greatest racetrack tout.

[klarg]

11:59 AM on 05/18/2011

Oh you dreary fact-based librals. As of May 18 nearly 0.19% of Americans have flocked to see this film - that shows you the power of the movement!

[Scent]

01:04 PM on 05/11/2011

A movie about how great it is to be a parasite - yea, the Tea Party will love it. - Because it's three main contributors - Murdoch and the Koch brothers - are the very parasites this movie celebrates as heroes.

[joeyfoto]

10:00 AM on 05/11/2011

I read Atlas Shrugged in 1963. I'll give the short version of a long comment.

In the almost forty years of my experience, I have never known anyone who was enamored of Ayn Rand's pathological drivel for more than a month, who was not a weakling.

[Mahilena Dianz]

12:50 AM on 05/10/2011

Fallacy of AYN Rand Individualism vs American Dream

If there are any solid contributions of Ayn Rand to the World these can be seen by the abuse of Free Market Captialism, the IDOL OF PROFIT AND IDOLATRY OF SELF reigning supreme leading to where only THE STRONGEST survives i.e., DESTRUCTION OF SOCIETY.

The idea that the INDIVIDUAL IS SUPREME AND THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, the idea that ABSOLUTE INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM is the goal and purpose of the American Dream...is a stretch which is the foundation of all single dictators. The individual SELF and its promotion thereof as the basis for the American concept of Freedom IS TOTALLY FALSE!

The FOUNDING FATHERS OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION OPPOSED EXTREMES and loved BALANCE. The constitution = THE SHRINE of BALANCED THINKING focuses on the Balance of Power as well as the Balance between Individual Freedom and the Enhancement of the Common Welfare. TRUE INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM in the form of THE BILL OF RIGHTS can only be assured by Government protecting/refereeing the success of the ONE & the success of the MANY. AYN RAND's SUPREMACY OF SELF only leads to the creation of A SOCIETY OF SMALL LITTLE HITLERS going around.this cannot be sustained and society cannot be formed and built on the basis of LITTLE HITLERS GOING AROUND.her values will never triumph anywhere and her ideas were not only fallacious but totally wrong and nearly idiotic...

More about Ms. Ayn Rand http://thinkprogress.org/?p=159391

[therblig]

08:37 PM on 04/26/2011

randroids and baggers aren't doing their part and producer blames the critics:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/04/atlas-shrugged-producer-critics-you-won-hes-going-on-strike.html

so much for taking responsibility

[Sten Hereli]

11:16 PM on 04/23/2011

It's bizarre that so many tea partyers identify with Rand's philosophy, while also identifying with the Christian Right. Rand held no punches in her takedown of the Judeo-Christian religion as one of the leading proponents of the "Morality of Death", and of the looters (e.g. banks and corporations) that the faithful blindly allow to rob the country. Rand nailed the self-defeating nature of blind faith based upon the sacrifice of reason, yet many professed Galtians on the Right still march to that drumbeat of mystical brainwashing.

[Rocklyn]

05:58 PM on 04/21/2011

How predictable that Republicans and Tea Baggers kneel at the altar of Ayn Rand over this piece of second hand rubbish; stolen from author economist Garret Garreth who wrote the original in the 1920's. Argue if you want, nothing will change the fact that Republicans are glaringly ignorant of their idols, never looking beneath robe. This book is an outright plagiarism of Garreth's work, something you would think would outrage and mortify the Righteous Right.

[goijra]

06:33 PM on 04/20/2011

Film took in 1.7 million at the box office, next stop a really crappy transfer to dvd. You'll find this at walmart in the $4.99 bargain bin some time around the middle of june I would guess.

[JShankel]

10:01 PM on 04/18/2011

Meanwhile Avatar grossed enough to pay for 1/1000th of TARP.  And most of that money went to employing Americans.  Not bad from a "bold captains of industry saving the world" perspective, eh?

[wwilcox]

08:47 PM on 05/18/2011

Cool. I bought the 3 CD set. Nice to know I contributed to the bold (American) captains of industry saving the world. Don't know if I could afford another 999 sets though.

[JShankel]

09:51 PM on 04/18/2011

Hey, Randroids, next time you're at your Randroid meeting playing your Randroid games, look around you.  How many actual captains of industry do you see?  I'm not talking about in World of Warcraft.  I'm talking about OWNERS of oil companies, computer companies, railroads, bus lines, airlines, manufactories, car companies, etc etc.

Not too many, eh?  Now, look at the bidness world.  How many of the actual owners of companies like Apple, Microsoft, Virgin Atlantic, AT&T, GE, or name your favorite fortune 500s, how many when interviewed and asked about the secret to their success put "become an Objectivist" at the top of the list?

I'm sure there are a few who would say Ayn Rand had some good ideas, but as we all know it's not enough to say she had a few good ideas, right?  You HAVE TO endorse pretty much every jot and tittle of her perfect philosophy otherwise you're a mooching bloodsucker who believes that others live unto them and in your mewling mediocrity cannot fathom that A=A and the purpose of a man's life is to live life qua life as defined by man who is alive in his life which his life qua his life and I have a little headache in my eye...

Right?  Look around.  Look at the RESULTS.  No one who yammers Randian nonsense without at the very least paraphrasing it occupies a high station in this world.  The exception being Alan Greenspan.  Who had a government job controlling money. So there's that.

Good luck with the movie series.  Looks great.  No really.  It looks great.  If I say it looks great again, will you stop talking?

[Simondj]

01:46 PM on 04/18/2011

AS is finally getting the film treatment it has so richly deserved since the book was published more than half century ago.

Trouble is, this STILL won't be enough to bury the philosophy of Objectivism and the cult of Rand. Unfortunately, there will always be a fresh crop of narcissistic, emotionally adolescent males searching for any justification of their unfounded feelings of intellectual superiority to keep feeding the book sales for generations to come.

[French Toast]

11:03 AM on 04/18/2011

All of the people who have come in here to pretend like they care about Rand's book aren't going to see the movie either. That's the beauty of it.

[Mike Martinovich]

06:55 AM on 04/18/2011

2nd Most Influential Book In History Behind The Bible. What does that say about people? What's #3?...."Faith Of My Fathers"?