'Atlas Shrugged,' Take Five
by Scott Holleran
May 18, 2003
HOLLYWOOD (Box Office Mojo) - Fans of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged have heard this one before: the movie rights have been sold and the enduring bestseller is coming to the silver screen.
Admirers of the epic 1957 novel may be skeptical of the news that Beverly Hills-based Crusader Entertainment bought the rights to Rand's story of the mind on strike.
Past attempts to make Atlas Shrugged into a movie have failed, though Crusader president and CEO Howard Baldwin is arguably better prepared than his predecessors. He has read Rand's gigantic novel, he has hired a top screenwriter and -- consistent with Rand's literary philosophy -- he's already thinking larger than life.
"Our goal is to adapt the book without any restrictions," Baldwin said during an exclusive interview with Box Office Mojo from his office in Beverly Hills. Baldwin said it's too early to peg the project as a three-hour movie, a miniseries or even a trilogy. "It may be two movies, it may be three," he teased. "We want to tell Atlas Shrugged properly."
That's no easy task. The novel, over 1,000 pages long, presents the essential principles of Rand's radical philosophy of self-interest, reason and capitalism.
While Atlas Shrugged is routinely vilified by left-wing intellectuals, who oppose Rand's view that capitalism is the only moral economic system, and repudiated by those on the right, who shudder at Rand's rejection of religion, it remains deeply loved by readers, who named it the second most influential book of their lives in a 1991 Library of Congress/Book-of-the-Month club survey -- behind only the Bible.
As a movie, its potential to move audiences is profound. Today's times seem taken straight from the pages of Atlas Shrugged: New York City at the core of a disastrous climax, businessmen under government persecution, chronic train wrecks and the slow, grinding halt of society's basic functions. The Ayn Rand Institute describes it as "Ayn Rand's complete philosophy, dramatized in the form of a mystery story 'not about the murder of a man's body, but about the murder — and rebirth — of man’s spirit."
Baldwin said Crusader became interested last year after billionaire businessman and Crusader Entertainment Chairman Philip Anschutz -- himself the recent target of government regulators -- noticed a front page USA Today article about the tremendous influence of Atlas Shrugged among business leaders.
"Phil gave me a call and said, 'Can we get this?'" It didn't hurt that one of Baldwin's friends, businessman Ed Snider, was cited in the article. Snider had previously owned the movie rights to Atlas Shrugged, and put Baldwin on track to buy them.
Baldwin projected a long development -- funded by Crusader -- though he said he expects a script treatment by the end of this summer. Screenwriter James V. Hart (Contact, Tuck Everlasting, Bram Stoker's Dracula), who penned Crusader's Sahara starring Matthew McConaughey, is writing the script.
Crusader is the latest entertainment company to take a crack at Atlas. Rand, who died in 1982 at age 77, sold the rights to producer Albert S. Ruddy (The Godfather) in 1972 -- but a movie was never made. Later, writer and producer Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night, The Towering Inferno) wrote a script for an NBC television miniseries -- which was killed by NBC executive Fred Silverman.
In 2000, Turner Network Television sought to make an original miniseries, with Albert Ruddy as producer -- but the deal fell apart in the wake of AOL's merger with TimeWarner and the devastating Sept. 11 attack by Islamic terrorists. Ruddy later tried to make a feature-length movie but his contract expired before he could secure financing.
Baldwin said Crusader is prepared to tackle the obstacles associated with such an ambitious undertaking. In keeping with Rand's view that making money is virtuous, Baldwin said he fully expects to make a profit from Atlas Shrugged.
"Atlas Shrugged is not going to be a low budget movie," Baldwin said. "But I think the box office potential is huge, because of the enormous interest. It is one of the best-selling books of all time."