Jolie & Pitt on Atlas?

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Strike Back below!
by: Mike Sampson Apr. 27, 2006

I don't know the first thing about author Ayn Rand and her novels like "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead" but it always seemed vaguely wacky and cultish to me. Not necessarily the books themselves but the devotion to which people threw at the book and the obsessive following. Also, I don't know much about Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's recent daliances but that also strikes me as vaguely wacky. So what a great pairing Rand and Pitt/Jolie would make! Lionsgate is teaming with Jolie and Pitt to bring Rand's best-selling ATLAS SHRUGGED to the big screen. The two actors are attached to star in the film as Dagny Taggart and John Galt the book's main characters. Howard and Karen Baldwin (RAY) are producing for Lionsgate with a script by James V. Hart (CONTACT). The current version of the script has the epic ATLAS split into two features but that will likely be condensed into one version now that Lionsgate is aboard. ATLAS was initially designed as a miniseries that was being developed for TNT in the late-90s. The budget for the film will likely be just north of $30 million, high for Lionsgate but low for a production of this scale. The actors who sign on for the film, including Jolie who's been a longtime devotee of Rand, would have to work for scale. Pitt can be seen next in THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES and will begin filming OCEAN'S 13 this summer.

Source: Variety

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mzieg
2:08PM on 04/27/2006 Add as a friend | MFC profile
The Passion of Ayn Rand
Note that there was a movie *about* the writing of Atlas Shrugged, titled "The Passion of Ayn Rand."

Although it was far from complimentary to the author's rather bizarre notions regarding wedlock (when you try to apply the same ideals guiding architecture and engines to human relations, stark weirdness ensues), it did strike me as believeable and even tragically sympathetic. ...
Note that there was a movie *about* the writing of Atlas Shrugged, titled "The Passion of Ayn Rand."

Although it was far from complimentary to the author's rather bizarre notions regarding wedlock (when you try to apply the same ideals guiding architecture and engines to human relations, stark weirdness ensues), it did strike me as believeable and even tragically sympathetic. A good counterpart to the more blindly ardent of her followers.

(As Neil Peart showed, it is possible to respect the goals of her philosophy without slavish submission to every corollary.)
 
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Mojave
1:43PM on 04/27/2006 Add as a friend | MFC profile
I don't know where thell you get Ayn Rand being weird and cultish from. The reason people who like her books are huge fans of hers is because of her objectionist philosophy, which comes through in her fiction, and in the essays she wrote. A lot of people find it an easily adaptable philosophy to live by, and become huge fans of hers.

Also, she was a huge movie buff, saw almost ev...
I don't know where thell you get Ayn Rand being weird and cultish from. The reason people who like her books are huge fans of hers is because of her objectionist philosophy, which comes through in her fiction, and in the essays she wrote. A lot of people find it an easily adaptable philosophy to live by, and become huge fans of hers.

Also, she was a huge movie buff, saw almost everything that came out, followed the box office and subscribed to movie gossip rags. So she probably would have been a fan of Joblo.

Eat it Sampson.

But yeah as far as a movie of Atlas Shrugged, that's not a good idea.
 
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Atlas1982
12:34PM on 04/27/2006 Add as a friend | MFC profile
Wait and See but Leaning toward bad idea
I thought they made this once already? I love the book as you can tell by my name. And I think you said it best mzieg. But the actors don't bother me. How fitting Atlas Shrugged will be made into a movie with A-list actors for what other than to make John Galt's favorite iconogram...$
I thought they made this once already? I love the book as you can tell by my name. And I think you said it best mzieg. But the actors don't bother me. How fitting Atlas Shrugged will be made into a movie with A-list actors for what other than to make John Galt's favorite iconogram...$
 
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mzieg
12:16PM on 04/27/2006 Add as a friend | MFC profile
OMG PLEASE NO!
While I'd love to see a proper movie made from this seminal book (it was a powerful influence on my life), these are NOT the actors to portray the lead roles.

(If indeed you can say Galt was the main character...he was more of a mystery role in the book, and would receive less screen-time than Rearden or D'Anconia in any faithful adaptation.)

Dagny != Lara Croft,...
While I'd love to see a proper movie made from this seminal book (it was a powerful influence on my life), these are NOT the actors to portray the lead roles.

(If indeed you can say Galt was the main character...he was more of a mystery role in the book, and would receive less screen-time than Rearden or D'Anconia in any faithful adaptation.)

Dagny != Lara Croft, and John Galt most certainly != Tyler Durden.

Please, please let this be a misguided rumor! There is simply no way a Hollywood studio is going to do an honest treatment of a story that is as anti-socialist as any you'll find. For god's sake, the "good guys" send a battleship to sink cargo vessels carrying food and medicine to starving European nations, and invert the legend of Robin Hood such that he actually steals from the poor and gives to the rich!

Hollywood moguls are NEVER going to approve an authentic script, and would only use this to sully Rand's ideas and confuse potential readers.