Atlas Shrugged is Stalled

[Barbara Branden]

Selene: "...yes she was incitefull and clear when I listened to her speak at NBI when I was 17. I haven't noticed any difference today."

Thank you. That's very good to hear.

Barbara

[Barbara Branden]

Chris Baker: "Now we all know where his money went. For a man, divorce is the surest route to the poorhouse."

Now how did I know you would say that?

Barbara

[Selene]

Selene: "...yes she was incitefull and clear when I listened to her speak at NBI when I was 17. I haven't noticed any difference today."

Thank you. That's very good to hear.

Barbara

You are quite welcome, and it was 45 years ago. I have always been reasonably sure that if you consistently and diligently continue to think, create and speak with the young, you have a very high percentage chance of remaining as young as our corporeal bodies allow.

Every Tuesday night, I teach chess with for other adults, a writer, scientist, Officer in the Coast Guard. Every single child in that chess club, two of the adults and all of there wives are reading one or more of Rand's works.

Since I was 16, I have worked one of the books or one of the ideas or both into every single conversation that I can and that is almost all. I always carry a book, even when grocery shopping. Half the time it is Rand or some other Randian gatekeeper. In the last ten phone calls with either attorneys, Court personnel, or Judge's law clerks, I bring up the 50th anniversary and the movie and, or, the fact that it is the second most read book to the Bible [basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth].

Make a person think and they might change the world!

Once again, thank you for your reasoned discourse and I might add a sharp worded tongue when necessary.

Adam

[Dragonfly]

Incitefull? Is that a creative spelling?

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara as always makes great points. That is only one of the reasons I love her.

Thank you, Chris.

Barbara

Barbara; You are quite welcome. As a personal note I hope you can come to the Summer Seminar this year.

[algernonsidney]

The socialists in Hollywood have had little to do with keeping the movie from being made. Ayn Rand, understandably, was terrified of selling the movie rights without insisting on controls that no producer could possibly give her. For example, in negotiating with Al Ruddy years ago, she demanded final cut approval -- which meant that Ruddy could have spent all the money, time, and effort needed to make the movie, only to have Rand veto it. I think it likely that in the years since, she may have, consciously or not, sabotaged some of the other negotiations with producers. After her death, Peikoff for many years blindly continued her policy of impossible demands until, apparently, he finally realized he was making a sale indefinitely impossible.

I'm sure you know more about this than I do. While I never met her personally, it seems that Rand became less trusting of people as she got older.

It's no surprise that the people trying to make the movie now are friendly to David Kelley. Unlike Peikoff, David Kelley is actually a good ambassador for Objectivism. I do wonder if the movie does get made, how easy will it be for some of the people who worked on it to get jobs afterward?

Yes, do consider what happened with the novel -- the novel about which some of the critics said: "Larger than life and twice as preposterous" -- "A cumbersome, lumbering vehicle" -- "A hymn to the survival of the fiittest" -- "Almost perfect in its immorality." And you see how they led to the commercial failure of the book! Assuming a reasonably good movie, I predict movie goers will have the same reaction to it as readers had to the book.

Based on this, it almost seems that a direct-to-video release would be more successful than a major theatrical release. I don't know how many listen to the critics though. There are a few, I trust. I do think that some of the actors and directors care about what they think. In Hollywood, "image is everything."

Howard Roark worked because he loved the work. If he had worried about how much money he was going to make, he wouldn't have worked. We need the same kind of people making this movie. I bet Rand would want it that way. I still think it will get bootlegged, and a bootleg may end up being a better movie.

Finally, I can add a few more ideological movies that made money: V for Vendetta and the X-men movies.

Edited September 22, 2008 by Chris Baker

[Selene]

Incitefull? Is that a creative spelling?

Hmmm, a Maslowian Bra, insightful, wow, I did not even pick that up at any visual level.

Thanks

Adam

[BaalChatzaf]

Finally, I can add a few more ideological movies that made money: V for Vendetta and the X-men movies.

Quite so. However, in -V- there was only one "John Galt" speech. In -Atlas Shrugged- there were a half dozen (at least) perorations. -V- without the knives, the explosives and the roses would have lost a bundle. The ratio of talk to action in -Atlas Shrugged- was much greater.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

What is a Maslowian Bra?

[Selene]

What is a Maslowian Bra?

B)

Gotcha!

My version of a Freudian Slip! lol

Adam

[Barbara Branden]

Chris Baker: "Howard Roark worked because he loved the work. If he had worried about how much money he was going to make, he wouldn't have worked. We need the same kind of people making this movie. I bet Rand would want it that way."

I think Rand would want the people making the movie to love the work -- and to make tons of money!

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

Chris Baker: "Howard Roark worked because he loved the work. If he had worried about how much money he was going to make, he wouldn't have worked. We need the same kind of people making this movie. I bet Rand would want it that way."

I think Rand would want the people making the movie to love the work -- and to make tons of money!

Barbara

Barbara; I think Ayn would agree completely.

I must add from what I heard at the 50th I think they do.

Edited September 23, 2008 by Chris Grieb

[Selene]

Folks:

Just another example of how the book keeps influencing gatekeepers who continue to spread the message.

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/dpatton/2008/dp_09231.shtml

This is one of my political websites/.

Adam

[Brant Gaede]

Atlas Shrugged of course is a verbal avalanche, but it is very oriented to seeing--that is you can almost see the ideas and Ayn Rand writes with a very dynamic visual style, most especially the first run of The John Galt Line. I'd like to see a movie that celebrated and built on that as opposed to talking heads and a lot of speeches.

--Brant

Edited September 23, 2008 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just got this link off of another forum.

Shrugging Off 'Atlas Shrugged'

It is a half-hour podcast interview (audio only) of Al Ruddy by Claude Brodesser-Akner conducted on September 8, 2008 for The Business. Here is the blurb:

Hollywood's been sniffing around Atlas Shrugged since Ayn Rand published it in 1957. So why hasn't it been made into a movie? We talk to legendary producer Al Ruddy, the first guy to get the go-ahead from Rand -- in 1974.

Ruddy sure sounds like a smooth talker.

After hearing him be bashed so much on online Objectivist and Objectivism-related sites, I really enjoyed listening to this. I think Ruddy is a wonderful producer. He has a very impressive track record. After listening to him, I believe he would have made a great movie (Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway). He also sounds like he has a firm grasp of the theatrical elements of the book that would sell the movie big time.

His break with Rand certainly sounds like her. He told her he would wait for her to die and then get the rights, and she responded that she would put in her will that he would be the one person never to receive them.

Yup. Those were the days...

Michael