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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It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun. From fashion to societal morality, history keeps on repeating itself. Who ever thought skinny jeans would come back in style? What’s next, stirrup pants and scrunchies? 

Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 is an excellent reminder of the dangers of socialism in our current age of entitlement. The parallels between the story and our current political and cultural state are uncanny and more than a little bit unsettling. As a witness to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, author Ayn Rand was well aware of the tragedies of statism, and her most famous work of literature depicts what happens when the wealth is spread around in the name of fairness. 

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The movie adaptation of Atlas Shrugged remains faithful to Rand’s themes of capitalism and the evils of collectivism. One major change from the pages to the screen was the decision to change the setting from a future fictional country to America in 2016. It was a good decision, in this writer’s opinion, as it illustrates the slippery slope of socialism our nation is teetering on. 

It opens with America in decline. Fuel prices are through the roof, making air travel impossibly unaffordable and bringing back trains as the major mode of transportation for people and goods. Airplanes and buildings are in disrepair, businesses shut down, and successful citizens disappear after being sought out by a shadowy character calling himself John Galt. 

Taylor Schilling does a beautiful job portraying heroine Dagny Taggart, who fights tooth and nail against her annoying brother James (Mathew Marsden) and his political cronies in Washington to make Taggart Transcontinental a success. Poised, polished, and with an iron will, Dagny partners with Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler), an entrepreneur who has invented a new metal that is lighter, cheaper, and stronger than steel. Together, they battle oppressive government restrictions and sanctions to rebuild the Rio Norte line in Colorado. The Centennial state is one of the last prosperous states in the nation, thanks in large part to oil tycoon Ellis Wyatt (Graham Beckel). Once the newly christened John Galt line is completed, Wyatt will have a safe way to transport his product to consumers. That is real job creation. 

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After decades of perennial best seller status, Ayn Rand’s epic novel “Atlas Shrugged” has finally made its way to the silver screen. “Atlas Shrugged, Part 1″ is due to arrive on April 15, 2011 and its stunning trailer has already garnered over 700,000 views on YouTube in just a few weeks.

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The perennial best seller is undergoing a new-found popularity in the Obama Era and the themes (and in some cases the exact plot points) of Rand’s scathing critique of state-run economies with “fairness” and “the social good” as its stated goals resonate in 2011 in an eerie and prescient way.

The film’s producer, Harmon Kaslow, took thirty minutes from his hectic promotion schedule to talk with me about what it took to make this project happen and the unique ways in which he is building a grass-roots following for the film…

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If there’s a production with a longer and more colorful history behind its troubled march to the silver screen than Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged,” the story of that particular episode of development hell has not yet been told. Published in 1957 and a perennial bestseller ever since (the novel sold a half-million copies just last year), the struggle to realize Rand’s sprawling and epic dramatization of her theory of Objectivism as told through a dystopian tale of the world’s best and brightest, feeling they’ve been exploited by an ungrateful society, putting their talent on strike, eluded even the author herself.

Throughout the decades, stars from Barbara Stanwyck to Angelina Jolie have expressed interest in bringing the novel to life, but it’s going to be producers Harmon Kaslow and John Aglialoro who finally break the curse. Directed by Paul Johansson, who also stars as John Galt, and co-starring Taylor Schilling as Dagny Taggart and Matthew Marsden as James Taggart, principal photography wrapped this very day. Which means…

Yes, there will be an “Atlas Shrugged” movie. Well, at least a part one.

Big Hollywood has enjoyed two visits to the film’s set, which our own Charles Winecoff will be writing more about soon, but due to the fact that much of what we’re reading in the media regarding the film’s production doesn’t coincide with what we’ve seen and heard for ourselves, I asked producer Harmon Kaslow to help set the record straight. (more…)