The feature-length documentary “Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of ‘Atlas Shrugged‘” is currently in its final week of a month-long limited national theater run, having to date played to enthusiastic audiences in upwards of 75 cities, including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Toronto, Stamford, Boston and Annapolis, Md.

The documentary will be available on DVD and download beginning in April through Virgil Films (“Restrepo,”"Forks Over Knives”) complete with extra features.

Author/philosopher Rand began writing her last and most ambitious novel – “Atlas Shrugged” – in the years immediately following World War II. Her working title for the book was “The Strike.” It was about what would happen if all the productive people in America went on strike, leaving the entitlement recipients and governmental regulators she called “moochers” and “looters” without anyone to create value for them.

The result is chaos and ultimate disaster.

The post-war years and early ’50s are generally thought to be a relatively prosperous and benign period in twentieth century American history. Yet that’s the period through which Rand painstakingly crafted her novel. When it was published in 1957, “Atlas” was widely dismissed for its “preposterous” scenario. “Atlas” was science fiction. In no way, said the critics, did it depict the real America. Not yet, Rand said. In fact, she wrote the novel in the hope she might prevent it from coming true.

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Ayn Rand may have a voice in the upcoming presidential election if the folks behind the “Atlas Shrugged” series have their way.

“Atlas Shrugged Part 2,” based on Rand’s iconic 1957 novel, begins principal photography in April in Los Angeles, Colorado, and New York. The film’s release window is October 2012, roughly a month before the presidential election.

No word on cast additions or changes yet, but Duncan Scott, an 8-time Emmy winner who worked extensively with Rand in her editing of “We the Living,” has joined the “Atlas” production team.

“Rand has long been the focus of Duncan’s work. He brings invaluable experience to the table as well as an incredible depth of knowledge regarding Atlas. We’re thrilled to have him on the team,” producer John Aglialoro said in a statement.

Today’s announcement, timed for Rand’s birthday, comes with the promise that the filmmakers will try to build upon the first installment.

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Let’s be honest. Movies, today, aren’t just one step away from being left wing propaganda, they just plain suck.

We’ve gone from Dirty Harry to Jason Bourne (or whatever his name ended up being; the camera was too shaky for me to ever tell what was going on). We’ve gone from Humphrey Bogart to George Clooney.  We’ve gone from John Wayne fighting Indians to Na’vi fighting Americans.

But, don’t fret. For there is an answer to our problems, fellow film buffs. I know you’re six feet from that ledge, but let me give you hope…they are called books. They are these contraptions with bindings and pages with words on the inside. Together this all creates a story one hundred times more fulfilling than today’s dim-witted liberal flavor-of-the-month films.

Hollywood has always been a liberal town. They give us anti-Iraq war movie after anti-Iraq war movie despite the fact that they all flop at the box office. But what of the literary world?  They must surely share Hollywood’s contempt for conservatives and enriching stories, right? Wrong. The publishing world seems to get it, for the most part. They like to publish what sells and what seems to sell today are right-leaning stories.

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Ayn Rand devotees finally got to hear the question they’ve been reading in print for the past 50-plus years:  “Who is John Galt?”

“Atlas Shrugged: Part I,” the long-awaited film adaptation of Rand’s celebrated tome, arrives on Blu-ray and DVD today after its spring theatrical release.

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The film follows a driven capitalist (Taylor Schilling) trying to save her family’s railroad company by using an experimental metal. Governmental regulations, and the disappearance of several noteworthy innovators, threaten to derail her ambitions.

“Atlas Shrugged: Part II” will begin production in 2012, but for now Rand fans can savor the original feature along with a quarter of home video extras:

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In recent weeks, I have read a number of Big Hollywood articles concerning Hollywood’s and the media’s treatment of the September 11th attacks in the years since they occurred. In particular, there have been some interesting and provocative articles about the historical treatment of the attacks and the movies created so far. Prior to these articles, there was another questioning the quality of “conservative” films and why/if they should be supported by the conservative community, as though most artists on our side of the aisle shouldn’t be supported.

While I definitely respect all these points of view, I have to question why many of us are questioning Hollywood instead of questioning ourselves. And what we should be asking ourselves is why many of us complain so much about Hollywood’s output but at the same time fail to support the burgeoning artists, musicians, writers and filmmakers in our own community?

For full disclosure:  yes, I am a conservative, and yes, I am a filmmaker trying to get my art out to the greater world. For the life of me, I have never understood why we monetarily and spiritually support artists, studios and media companies while simultaneously berating them for what they offer us. If someone delivers crummy pizza that smells weird, tastes worse and gets me sick, would I still call the same pizza place every time? No. So, why do we do the same when making entertainment or artistic purchase choices? (more…)

So with the news that Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 is underperforming and leaving theaters rather than expanding, it’s unclear whether producer John Aglialoro will be able to produce the planned sequels for the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s most famous and controversial work. Name recognition from one of the bestselling books of the past century, still a chart-topper due its appeal to libertarians and limited-government advocates, wasn’t a strong enough draw to earn back even half of its $20 million production budget so far, and this raises a lot of questions for those who rooted for the film. What does this mean for conservatives and fans of Rand?

Obviously, it means everything we’ve ever believed is absolutely wrong.

The free market just doesn’t work. Every conservative really is a secret dog-whistle racist. America is no more exceptional than North Korea. The earth really is barreling towards cataclysmic destruction because of you air conditioner. True equality and justice comes from redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. Wait–

*brakes screech*

*spit take*

*jaw drops*

*pants fall*¹

Redistribution of wealth? Lucky for Aglialoro and his partner at Atlas Films, Harmon Kaslow, they’re located smack dab in the middle of millionaire country; and Los Angeles’s rich filmmakers all agree that redistribution of wealth is the right path for America! So, here is my plea to some of Tinseltown’s most beloved left-wing filmmakers. We’ve seen the light, and now we need your help. (more…)

We knew that right now was the best time to launch our feature film documentary about Ayn Rand’s life and ideas, and a grassroots campaign on the web is getting our film, Inside the Mind of Ayn Rand off to a quick start. 

Interest in Rand has been escalating over the last couple of years, and of course the main reason is that she nailed it with her 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged. Rand foresaw, more than fifty years ago, what is happening today in our country — the free market being destroyed, government taking over private industry, bureaucratic bungling and deception, always with disastrous results — and she understood the underlying causes, too.

Sales of her books are setting records.  She is quoted constantly–not only in newspapers, newsmagazines, television and radio talk shows, but also in mass media favorites like The Simpsons, South Park, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report.  And then there is her popularity with so many in the Tea Party and pro-liberty community. Odd bedfellows maybe, but there’s no denying her ability to get people talking!

Her visibility climbed even higher this month with the long awaited release of the film, Atlas Shrugged, Part One.  

So it was time to launch Inside the Mind of Ayn Rand, a project we have been prepping since early 2010.  Slated for release in theaters in early 2012, the 90-minute feature film explores the relevance of Ayn Rand’s views on the fundamental issues facing society today. And while it also weaves in the epic story of her life, it’s not focused on biographical details. Most importantly, this will be the first major film to examine, in some depth, the full range of her ideas—i.e., reason, limited government, self-interest, and free markets—and the impact those ideas have on the state of our world today.

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If you remember, in my exclusive story yesterday regarding the future of the “Atlas Shrugged” trilogy, we learned the following:

The most interesting development, however, is that in their effort to expand television advertising, MSNBC, CNN and CNBC “have all rejected a 15-second ad for ‘editorial’ reasons [with] no further explanation provided.”

“This unforeseen censorship effectively puts the brakes on our follow-up marketing efforts where we were trying to reach millions of people unaware of the movie being in theaters now,” Kaslow wrote. “We are continuing with the theatrical release because we have great word of mouth and awareness for the movie increases daily.”

Just a few minutes ago, the producers were good enough to send along a YouTube of the rejected ad with this note: “Here’s the ad.  It’s very simple and certainly in no way offensive[.]”  

See for yourself:

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Lately, there have been duelling stories in the entertainment press about the future of ”Atlas Shrugged.” With disappointing box office returns, the producers have been asked if they will go ahead and complete the franchise and in one interview we’re being told there will be no trilogy and in another we’re being told that there will. To clear the air, I reached out via email and “Atlas” producers John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow were both good enough to respond with exclusive quotes that should help to calm fears of “Atlas” fans everywhere.  

Most surprising, though, was the revelation that CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC are refusing to broadcast 15-second “Atlas” spots. What’s that about?

“I’m going to get a picture of Roger Ebert and Peter Travers and the rest of them so I can wake up in the morning and be reminded what we’re up against,” Aglialoro wrote in an email. “They’re revitalizing me with their outrageousness.” Aglialoro then went on to state that he had been “misunderstood” when he said that the critical drubbing the film took “influenced him to abandon the second and third films in the Atlas Shrugged franchise.”  He confirmed that he has ”no intention to go on strike.”

That should come as very good news to the many, many people who obviously enjoyed the film and found it to be something special. Personally, I’ve never seen such polarized reviews before. The critics savaged it and yet everyone who sent a revew into us loved it. The most interesting thing I’ve noticed is that no one was on-the-fence about the film. No one said, “Yeah, it was okay.” People either passionately embraced Part 1 or passionately didn’t. You don’t see a lot of movies like that. So, for those of you who loved it…

“Make no mistake, we want to make Part 2 and Part 3 and we’re committed to finding a way to make it work,” Aglialoro wrote.  “There’s a temptation to make the movies expecting to lose money, to say to heck with the critics and invest another $10 million and hope to make some of it back. But to do so would betray Ayn Rand’s principles. This has to be a profitable venture. The challenge is in finding a way to overcome the critics and the rest of the establishment, who are united against us. The most frustrating thing is knowing that there are people who are missing out on an opportunity to enjoy the experience of Atlas Shrugged on the big screen either because of what critics have said or because they just don’t know it’s in theaters because they haven’t heard about it.”

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A New York Post article title reads, “Box Office: ‘Atlas Shrugged’ collapses, even without a NY Times review.’ However, it is possible that the movie’s limited success and the lack of a Times review are linked. Cynthia Haven, an affiliate at Stanford University, points out that at least in the case of obscure books, negative reviews “can dramatically boost sales for obscure and up-and-coming writers.” This trend—of negative reviews boosting sales—can be observed again and again.

The NY Post article linked above asks the question: “Why didn’t The New York Times, which deploys a small army of critics to handle even the most obscure releases, bother to review this particularly newsworthy movie?” A worthy question. The Post goes on:

The Culture Desk, as its [sic] known over there, hasn’t even run a feature on the movie since 2007 (though a couple of Op Ed columnists mentioned it recently). The Times didn’t respond to my e-mailed query, but a commentor [sic] named Stu Freeman posted an intriguing theory at the movie’s page on the newspaper’s website:

“Has anyone else been wondering why The Times- which never lets a new movie go unreviewed (even when no critics’ screenings have been arranged)- has decided to break precedent with this one? My understanding is that the film’s producers actually did hold a press screening but decided not to issue an invite to this paper. If so, the failure to publish a review here is a matter of pure pique and comes across as a disservice to the paper’s readers. I have no personal connection to the film and nothing good to say on its behalf. My argument is that every film that opens commercially in NYC deserves to be critiqued by its paper of record. The decision not to do so is even more deplorable than that taken by the distributing company to withhold an invitation to its opening for reasons of editorial politics, operating policy or anything else. Who knows? The Times critics might have actually liked the thing…”

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What happened to our leaders?

Like many Americans, on October 3, 2008 my world changed. That afternoon, Congress had passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the Wall Street Bailout.  Like many Americans, I had written Congress, had called the Congressional switchboard, had done everything I could to let my voice be heard. But my government had not listened. I grew up in the 80s, at a time when kids were still taught America was a good idea, because we were a free people with a voice. That Friday I discovered, along with many other Americans, that I no longer had a voice in my government. Somehow, now I was no longer a member of We The People. On paper I was, but in the unwritten evolving “Constitution” of Congressional precedent, Wall Street and special interests were The People who mattered now. Standing there in my kitchen, washing my dishes, watching my kids play in the dwindling daylight, I felt small before the face of my government, and I felt a deep solidarity with all those people who had called the Congressional switchboard with me.

But unlike many Americans, I happen to be a college professor who researches how to understand and model complex systems. My doctoral work dealt with how metaphor and narrative model complexity in economics and neuroscience. All very wonkish to be sure. This work earned me an invitation to research and lecture at the Joint Forces Staff College, Norfolk VA, on how military commanders can lead, understand, and model complex operational environments in real time.

It was my days working in development and movie production in Indie Hollywood that first convinced me of the power of narrative. Narrative is not only found in literature books, or movies themselves, but in days on set, in the hundreds of production details, in shot choices, in schedules, in actor issues, and all financial decisions that go into making a feature film. Complex systems are understood through narrative.

During the week that followed the passage of TARP, I reviewed the news coverage of the Bailout and sensed parts of the story were missing. DC and the media all said that TARP was necessary, but was it? Really? Why had TARP encountered so much opposition in the House when all the power brokers supported it? Why had the Bailout failed on the Monday vote? Why did it pass so easily in the Senate? What changed the minds of those who flipped their votes to support it? Who were the people on the inside who were actually fighting the bill? What did the power brokers do to stop them? And why aren’t those who fought the Bailout getting to tell their side of the story?

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Released April 15, 2011, Atlas Shrugged Part I has been predictably panned by reviewers and wildly embraced by audiences.

At the movie-review site Rotten Tomatoes, just 8 percent of critics give a thumbs up, compared to 85 percent of moviegoers. Such a sharply split reaction mirrors the reception of Ayn Rand’s original and controversial novel too. Appearing in 300 theaters, the movie’s weekend take on a per-screen basis was a strong $5,640, good enough for third overall behind major-studio releases Rio and Scream 4.

How do the folks behind Atlas Shrugged Part I feel about it all?

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Paul Bond at the Hollywood Reporter:

Despite its “awful” marketing plan, as one distribution exec calls it, the movie earned a $5,640 per-theater average opening: “Things have turned for us,” producer Harmon Kaslow tells THR.

The power of Ayn Rand devotees have impressed some Hollywood distribution executives, who took note of the hefty $5,640 per-theater average scored by Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 during its opening weekend.

‘Atlas Shrugged’: First Movie to Target the Tea Party Atlas Shrugged Review”Shocking,” one executive said about the healthy business the low-budget film has been doing considering its “awful” marketing plan.

Awful or not, business has been brisk enough for producers Harmon Kaslow and John Aglialoro to expand from 299 theaters to 425 this weekend and to 1,000 by the end of the month, they told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday.

The two said they fielded 500 inquiries from theater bookers Monday but didn’t have enough film prints to fill orders.

“Things have turned for us,” Kaslow said. “When we started, exhibitors were not embracing the film like we thought they would. Now, we can pretty much go into as many theaters as we want. It’s just a matter of logistics.”

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It’s hard to make a rich man sympathetic as he battles the forces of evil from the marbled halls of palatial mansions. But the screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged does it. At the apparent climax of the movie, there’s a stand up and cheer moment as the stars – Industrialist Henry Rearden (Grant Bowler) and Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) – literally speed in a train to victory over a foolish, conniving, and good-ideas-squelching government in Washington.

Rearden has developed a new metal that is stronger and cheaper than any before it. To get it out fast in order to repair the country’s deteriorating railroad supply lines needed to ease the economic depression, he has set up a chain of companies. One by one, self-serving lawmakers, aided by lobbyists, threatening union leaders, sycophantic journalists and myopic do-gooders, outlaw Rearden’s companies in the name of monopoly busting “for the people” until he’s down to the original parent. Despite their efforts to buy and bully him, he won’t yield.

It’s mine, he tells the smarmy scientist leading the effort in the press to undermine him with poorly substantiated stories that the metal is a safety hazard and unfair to workers, and who has been designated to deliver a blank check from Washington for Rearden if he’ll sell out.  The company is his, objects Rearden, not the government’s to take away and screw up. The metal is good. It will help the country. If the scientist can prove it isn’t good, he might reconsider. The scientist can’t. He’s the real sell out. (more…)

Ed. Note: Please welcome Lee Stranahan to Big Hollywood. This is actually his second piece for us, but things were a little hectic last time and things got away from me. It’s an honor to have him as part of the BH family and I very much encourage you to seek out his superb work ast the other BIG sites. –JN

No, I still haven’t seen it but the business side of Atlas Shrugged is of interest to me as a filmmaker, political writer and former Objectivist. Plus my friend Andrew Breitbart and my ex-wife Kat are both in movie – in the same scene. (Kat is wearing pink, Breitbart isn’t.)

Some people – like liberal blogger and (former?) friend Bob Cesca – want to say it’s doing very badly. This is from his subtly titled post Nobody Likes Atlas Shrugged.

Did you know there’s a movie version of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged?

No? Well, you’re not alone. The first part of a trilogy (!!!) based on Ayn Rand’s libertarian bible was released in limited theaters on Friday and it currently has an 8 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s really awful.

And the reviews are generally bad. Some are sort of mixed, like this one by Kyle Smith from the New York Post…

Though a bit stiff in the joints and acted by an undistinguished cast amid TV-movie trappings, this low-budget adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel nevertheless contains a fire and a fury that makes it more compelling than the average mass-produced studio item.

The low-budget / casting angle comes up in many reviews and I certainly raised them myself. But the original reviews of Atlas Shrugged were…well, awful. Really awful. And not all the data is that negative. On IMDB right now it has a kind of okay 6.8 rating. And on Box Office Mojo, it’s got a solid B with 74% giving it an A.

Criticism is all opinion, however. How did it do business wise?

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We’re hearing that “Atlas Shrugged” is selling out theatres, even in New York! There’s no way to confirm, but that’s the word on Twitter.

For those of you who have seen it, did you catch our own Andrew Breitbart in a cameo? Christian Adams did:

I caught a showing of Atlas Shrugged and found both Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon as well as Andrew Breitbart on the big screen. …

[W]ho would have thought Andrew Breitbart would be the next Internet media mogul to appear on the big screen?  I caught a glimpse of what I thought was Andrew in an Atlas Shrugged scene involving an anniversary party.   Andrew confirmed to me he indeed has an uncredited cameo in Atlas Shrugged.  Don’t blink, his big moment is only a few seconds.

If you’ve seen “Atlas,” let us know what you thought in the comments. If you haven’t, look for the closest theatre here and request your local theatre screen it here.

By the way, another rumor floating around is that if you buy Andrew’s new book “Righteous Indignation” and see “Atlas” this weekend, and angel will get its wing and a liberal’s head will explode. What you call a two-fer.

Top 10 Reasons America’s Having a Great Week…

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“Atlas Shrugged: Part 1,” the film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s prescient, unabashedly pro-free market capitalism novel, hits theaters today. Its timing could not be better.

Though taken from a book written a half-century ago and set in the year 2016, the movie is eerily similar to the world today, bearing a particular resemblance to the United States and the societal and economic depreciation of states like California, where manufacturing industries have collapsed, economic liberty and entrepreneurialism are eroding, and productive members of society seem to be rapidly disappearing, or rather, run out of business by bureaucratic red tape and unreasonable regulations.

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While the literary polish of Rand’s 1,000-plus-page novel is unparalleled, the cinematic version of her philosophical peregrination that questions which society is preferable for mankind – one of rational self-interest or one of suppressive of individualism meant to level all individual output – upholds her objectivist worldview and ought to stoke the debate about free society and the role of government.

Not only is the film a winner for holding firm to Randian philosophy, it also brazenly and refreshingly brings a political perspective that is almost universally absent from the big screen; so much so in fact it could become a cult classic, especially among Tea Partiers and their admirers, not to mention hordes of libertarians.

The film, true to the book, is set in the United States in 2016, with a global economy in shambles, conflicts in the Middle East disrupting oil supplies, massive oil spills, pronounced class warfare, demonization of private companies, overly powerful union bosses, bureaucrats and special interests, empty factories, fleeing entrepreneurs and innovators, overreaching government regulations and businesses ever more subservient to government bureaucracy. Does this dystopian society seem familiar? If not, perhaps you have been hiding in some utopian village in the Rocky Mountains the rest of us do not know about.

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Whether you agree with Ayn Rand’s philosophy or not, her novel Atlas Shrugged has touched the lives of millions and influenced many of today’s center-right thinkers. The Wall Street Journal noted this morning:

Book sales for “Atlas” have always been brisk—and all the more so in the past few years, as actual events have mirrored Rand’s nightmare vision of economic collapse amid massive government expansion.

Rand’s belief in the primacy of the individual over the collective has garnered her vilification from some on the Right and many, especially, on the Left.

Yet, there is no denying that Atlas Shrugged’s portrayal on the devolution of society at the hands of the Left was prescient as it was one of the most cogent attacks on the excesses of liberalism. Today, it seems as though the lines of fiction and reality have blurred in our nation.

Tomorrow, the film Atlas Shrugged, Part One opens nationwide, which is a faithful adaptation of Part One of her 1957 novel.

Today, we offer you, Atlas is Shrugging, a new short film by Ben Howe.

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The New York Post’s Kyle Smith gave “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1″ a mixed review, but closes his must-read piece with a spot-on analysis of why the film still matters. Regardless of the reviews and even the box office, something remarkable happens tomorrow: The imperfect but important ideas of Ayn Rand, which heretofore have only been available in black and white on Turner Classic Movies and in written form, will now burst into a few hundred movie theatres and eventually make a mark on a lot more people through home video.

Because of the power of the motion picture and popular culture in general, there’s no downside at this point. And we have a few brave individuals with the kind of moxie it takes to risk their own money and buck Hollywood’s PC-infested political climate to thank for this. They did this all on their own. From the beginning, Hollywood talent agencies refused to let their clients consider a role, and tomorrow they’re self-distributing in as many theatres as they can.

However, just because it’s already a win for our side doesn’t mean we should sit back and bask in it. if you want another win in Part 2 and 3, this one has to succeed. And how great would it be to see Part 2 dropped right in the middle of a Obama’s re-election bid?

Kyle Smith:

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My wife — the smartest, wisest person I know — has a saying: “Since nothing will make you happy, I’m done trying.” Her point, and it’s a good one, is that there’s no reason to try and satisfy those who refuse to be, those who are more interested in complaining than anything else. This is something I’ve always tried to avoid when it comes to what I have to say about Hollywood. Yes, we most certainly are engaged in a political and cultural war with the entertainment industry — a war they started — but ”Hollywood” isn’t a single person or thing or studio. Like the terms “Big Business” and “Big Labor,” “Hollywood” is a kind of shorthand both sides use to identify a political adversary. 

But there is a nuance to Hollywood that can be found among the many right-of-center types and reasonable liberals who really do want to do the best work they can and make a butt-load of money in the process. And it’s for their sake (and ours) that we have acknowledge and appreciate when Hollywood does right by us. We simply have to prove to those watching and wondering that it is profitable to satisfy our complaints — that’ we’re not going to move the goalposts.

Thus far, right-of-center America has done an absolutely marvelous job in this respect. While anti-American junk has flopped at a forever-pleasing 100% rate, well-made films that speak to our values and beliefs have been almost universally embraced. “300,” “Gran Torino,” “Taken,” “The Dark Knight,” Fireproof,” “Blind Side,” “Battle: Los Angeles,” and “The Book of Eli,” have not only done well at the box office, but in some cases much, much better than expected because word spread throughout Middle America that this one’s for us. With social media, especially the miracle that is Twitter, a fire can start that completely circumvents the corrupt MSM and has an immediate effect at the box office.

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